Lanzhou University in Northwest China’s Gansu Province was ordered to compensate Chinese streaming service provider Leshi Internet Formation and Technology Corp (LeTV) nearly 110,000 yuan ($17,243) after its students uploaded and spread nine movies that the company had authorization for network dissemination.
The university was ordered to compensate a total of 109,800 yuan to LeTV based on nine sentences over the infringement on the right of information network transmission after students from the university uploaded and spread nine of the company’s authorized movies, according to the final judgement announced by the Beijing Intellectual Property Court on Monday to uphold the first verdict.
According to the nine sentences, LeTV found that the university provided the public download services on the website it operates of the nine movies, including Under the Hawthorn Tree directed by renowned Chinese film director Zhang Yimou and Buddha Mountain starring Chinese actress Fan Bingbing. However, the company had never granted authorization to the university to spread the movies on the internet.
Previously, the university appealed to the court that the university only provided the platform and only had the maintenance function of its users’ basic information, and didn’t have the upload function for videos. The videos were totally uploaded and managed by the students themselves, the university claimed.
However, the second trial court did not agree with the claim since the university failed to provide evidence of the uploaders’ IDs, upload times, or upload web addresses and other information.
According to You Yunting, senior partner and intellectual property attorney of Shanghai Debund Law Offices, the university has an obligation to manage the website and be responsible for the losses of the copyright owner caused by the piracy of the movies, with its legal status as the network service provider stipulated in the Regulations on Protection of the Right of Communication through Information Network.
“If an infringement occurs due to the negligence of the management, the website administrator shall also bear corresponding responsibilities,” You told the Global Times on Wednesday.
The market scale of China’s online copyright industry exceeded 1 trillion yuan for the first time in 2020, reaching a record high of 1,184.73 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 23.6 percent, according to the Report on the Development of China’s Online Copyright Industries (2020) released by the National Copyright Administration of China on Tuesday.
The structure of China’s online copyright industry continued to change with an obvious trend based on the boom of videos during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the report noted.
Photo: VCG
