How to reduce short video infringement？ Court support
With the development of mobile Internet technology and the popularity of smart phones, short videos have become a new form of communication popular with the public. However, the rapid development of the short video industry has also triggered new contradictions, with frequent infringement issues and disputes.
What are the infringement risks of using animation toys to shoot short videos? How does the court judge that the short video platform uploads popular songs for users to use without authorization? On the occasion of World Intellectual Property Day, Beijing Internet Court informed the court about the trial of short video copyright cases and issued a number of typical cases to explain the law.
Shoot short videos with self-purchased anime toys.
A case released by the Beijing Internet Court shows that the plaintiff Company A enjoys the exclusive right of information network communication and other copyrights for the "Altman" series of film and television works and their characters in Chinese mainland, and the defendant Company B uses the animation toys it bought to shoot and make short videos containing the "Altman" series of characters without permission, and uploads them to its own WeChat WeChat official account for public viewing or downloading. The plaintiff believed that the defendant’s behavior infringed on his right to copy, disseminate information on the Internet and shoot the "Altman" series of film and television works and their characters, so he requested the court to order the defendant to stop the infringement and compensate the economic losses. The court ruled that the defendant immediately stopped the infringement and compensated the plaintiff for economic losses of 320,000 yuan and notary fees of 2,500 yuan.
"The use of other people’s works constitutes reasonable use and needs to comply with the relevant provisions of the Copyright Law." Zhang Lianyong, deputy director of the Intellectual Property Judges’ Meeting of Beijing Internet Court, said that in the process of using the works involved, the defendant in this case objectively broadened the user flow of its own WeChat WeChat official account, which played an obvious role in enhancing the popularity and promoting its own brand. At the same time, there are 437 paragraphs involving the image of "Altman" in the video shot and uploaded by the defendant, involving a total of 33 Altman images, which has caused substantial damage to the legitimate rights and interests of the plaintiff, which does not meet the requirements of fair use of copyright law and constitutes infringement.
In this case, the defendant bought the "Altman" image toy, and he enjoyed the property rights of possession, use, income and disposal of the toy. In this regard, Zhang Lianyong explained that although the defendant enjoyed the ownership of the "Altman" image toy in the sense of property rights, it could not extend to the copyright of the "Altman" art image works. The exercise of real right should respect the copyright it carries, otherwise it may constitute infringement.
Short video platform uploads popular songs without authorization.For users’ use
At present, in order to attract users, some short video platforms deliberately ignore the issue of authorization, and upload some popular songs to the platform music library for users to use as music when making short videos, resulting in hundreds of thousands or even more infringements of a song.
Company A, the plaintiff, was authorized to obtain the information network communication right of a popular online song. The short video platform operated by defendant B Company uploaded the song to the platform music library without the plaintiff’s authorization, and users can use and cover the song at will when recording short videos through the platform. In the end, 377,000 works on the short video platform used the song, and many users covered the song and recorded and uploaded short videos. These short videos can be played, liked, commented, shared and downloaded, with the functions of shooting the same paragraph and paying for promotion, and about 195,000 works used the short videos uploaded by the above users. The plaintiff believed that the defendant’s behavior seriously violated the plaintiff’s right to spread the song on the information network, and requested the court to order the defendant to delete all the infringing short videos and compensate the economic losses. During the trial of this case, the plaintiff confirmed that the defendant had deleted all the infringing short videos and changed the claim to compensate for economic losses. The court ruled that the defendant compensated the plaintiff for economic losses of 3000 yuan.
"Without the permission of the plaintiff, the defendant uploaded the popular online songs that the plaintiff enjoyed the right of information network communication to the short video platform music library and placed them in the information network, so that platform users could use and cover the songs at will when recording short videos at the time and place selected by individuals, which infringed on the plaintiff’s right of information network communication and should bear the tort liability of compensation for losses." Zhang Lianyong said.
In this case, the short video platform submitted the identity information of the network users who covered the songs involved to the court, and it can be concluded that the relevant short video was uploaded by the network users. In this regard, the court held that considering the direct infringement of the short video platform in providing the songs involved in the music library, combined with the music usage mode of the short video, the short video platform should be able to reasonably realize that the network users will use the songs involved in the upload to record and upload short videos, but they have not taken necessary measures to prevent them, which is subjectively wrong. Therefore, for the behavior of network users who cover the songs involved and record and upload short videos, if the short video platform does not provide evidence to prove that it is not at fault, it constitutes help infringement and should bear the corresponding tort liability.
Short video platform should strengthen supervision and guide users to standardize their creative behavior.
Infringement of copyright involving short video is high, which damages the legitimate rights of copyright owners and affects the long-term development of short video industry. How to strengthen responsibility and avoid infringement? Jiang Ying, a member of the party group and vice president of Beijing Internet Court, believes that on the one hand, short video platforms should strengthen supervision. Classify and manage the content, and strengthen the supervision obligations for short videos with obvious infringement attributes, strong platform control and direct benefits from the platform. In addition, the supervision of platform users should be strengthened. For users who continue to infringe repeatedly, measures such as restricting rights and titles should be taken to effectively avoid repeated infringements. On the other hand, the short video platform should become a link between the copyright owner and the user, effectively integrate music, pictures, videos and other resources, and build a copyright authorization distribution system of first authorization, then use and then pay, so as to effectively reduce the occurrence of infringement.
At the same time, raising the awareness of copyright protection of short video creators is particularly important for reducing the occurrence of infringement from the source. Jiang Ying suggested that courts, administrative departments, educational institutions and other relevant units can rely on the short video platform to educate short video creators about law popularization and popularize knowledge of copyright protection. Short video platform should be based on legal provisions, judicial cases, administrative regulatory requirements, etc., for the common short video copyright infringement for special treatment, to guide users to regulate short video creation behavior.