Asia IP

The People’s Procuratorate of Haidian District in Beijing recently announced a court decision on the first criminal case of video website infringement in China, according to China Press and Publishing Journal.

The court ruled that Zhang, who was prosecuted on copyright infringement, had violated copyright law, and sentenced him to six months jail and a fine of Rmb 20,000 (US$3,225). It is also the first online video infringement case handled by the Beijing procuratorate.

On July 30, 2013, Beijing police received reports from many video websites claiming their movies and dramas with exclusive rights were played on two other websites “2345 ReBo” and “Xingji S Dianying.” Suspect Zhang was detained the next day. He confessed that he rented a server and established the websites that provided free access to the films via deep linking. Collecting software would store the torrent resources found on the internet on the server. Internet users had to use specific servers when watching the videos.

According to Zhang, after registering with the advertisement alliance, he would embed the advertising code sent by the alliance in his websites. From four to five months’ operation, he had received revenue of Rmb 40,000 (US$6,500) from the advertisement based on its hits or displays.

This is good news for copyright owners, especially for video websites and video producers, says Ran Ruixue, a partner at Jun He in Beijing. She says it is difficult for copyright owners to collect evidence before the police initiate investigation.

It’s important to work actively and closely with the police, she says. “As indicated by this case, when police intervened, evidence could be much more easily collected and the criminal penalties [have] great deterrent effect.”

Ran suggests copyright owners report infringement to the police as quickly as possible, and to provide as much evidence as possible to facilitate their investigation. As there are usual multiple victims in such cases, it is a better idea to cooperate with other video websites and producers to push the police to initiate an investigation, she says.

She further notes that not only is it costly for copyright owners to fight infringement on their own, rewards for the time and effort spent do not benefit rights owners much.