Because the user uploads I am not the medicine god the movie pure audio B station defendant!

Youku Information Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd.(hereinafter referred to as Youku Company) sued Shanghai Kuanyu Digital Technology Co., Ltd.(hereinafter referred to as Kuanyu Company), the operator of B station, for violating the right of dissemination of information network, because users of the video screen website bilibili website (i.e. B station) uploaded pure audio of "I am not the god of medicine" film. Recently, the Beijing Internet Court of first instance found that the wide entertainment company should be aware of the use of its network services to violate Youku's right to disseminate information network, constitute a helping infringement, decided that the company compensation Youku economic losses and reasonable expenses of 65000 yuan.

 Film Audio Litigation

 It is reported that "I am not the god of medicine" is directed by Wen Muye, Xu Zheng, Monday Wai and other starring drama films, released in China on July 5,2018. The film tells the story of Cheng Yong, the owner of Shenyou Shop, who jumped from a male health-care vendor who couldn't afford to pay the rent to become the sole agent of the Indian generic drug "Gerhardt ". In 2019, the film won the 15th spiritual civilization construction "five one project" excellent works award, the 32nd Chinese film Golden Rooster Award Best Story Film Award nomination.

 The plaintiff, Youku, claims that it has exclusive Internet access to the film I'm not the God of Medicine. The defendant's website users uploaded the pure audio of the film "I am not the god of medicine" to the "film > film and television editing" column, and edited the title as "[1080 P] I am not the original sound of film and television ". The plaintiff claimed that the defendant, without permission, had provided the broadcast and download services of all the original sound of the film and television in the case, and appealed to the court for infringement of his right to disseminate information network, requesting that the defendant be ordered to compensate the plaintiff for the economic loss of 300,000 yuan and the reasonable cost of 20,000 yuan.

  The defendant, the company, argued that, for audio with only the original sound of the film, the complete expression of the work, the thought content expressed by the author and the author's unique conception of the image were not substantially reflected due to the lack of necessary pictures; the form and content used were very limited and did not constitute material harm to the interests of the copyright owner. And for defendants, such audio is hard to spot as a work with high attention. In addition, the defendant is the information network storage space service provider, the audio involved is uploaded by the network user, the defendant does not have the situation that should know or know that the network user uses the network service to infringe the copyright of others, does not constitute the help infringement, has no obvious fault. Therefore, the defendant in this case should not be liable for compensation for tort.

First instance found infringement

 The court found that the audio is an important part of the original expression of the film works involved in the case, and the action is to provide the film involved. The act of "making works available to the public by cable or wireless means" as stipulated in article 10(12) of the copyright law should not be narrowly understood as providing complete works to the public, because the copyright law protects the expression of originality, which is within the control of the right of dissemination of the information network of the work, provided that the part of the original expression of the work is used. According to this, it is necessary to examine whether the audio used the original expression of the film.

 A film work is a work produced on a certain medium, consisting of a series of pictures with or without a sound, which is shown or disseminated by means of an appropriate device. Therefore, both the accompanying sound and the picture are an organic part of the film works, which can carry the original expression of the film works.

 In this case, the audio involved is the complete companion of the film works involved in the case, which is an integral part of the film involved, including the director, recording, editing and other multi-link creative activities, belong to the important part of the original expression of the film involved, not the creative elements of the public domain. In addition, the accompaniment contains many sound elements, such as spoken language, music and sound effects, which are fixed on the audio track of the film works.

 In addition, the audio in the case provides complete accompaniment, which caters to the diversified needs of the current network users to obtain the film involved in the case, and constitutes a substantial replacement for the traditional transmission form of the film works with sound and picture, and the unauthorized use will inevitably cause substantial damage to the interests of the film involved. Therefore, the act of being sued falls under the control of the right of transmission of film information network.

 The court held that the defendant constituted a helping violation. First of all, according to industry practice and general cognition, it is difficult for personal network users to obtain corresponding rights to professional production of film works, and the obligee will generally not allow individual users to upload and share their works on the network for public online play and watch. In this case, the audio department involved in the case has a very high profile of the film involved in the full original sound, and upload time before the film was officially released by the cinema before landing on Youku.com, when the film involved in the hot broadcast period. Therefore, the defendant should be aware that the audio in question was provided without permission. Secondly, the defendant has set up the classification and retrieval conditions of the storage space it operates, even in order to ensure the normal operation and facilitate the network users to upload, browse and watch works, should bear the corresponding duty of attention at the same time, especially for the classification setting of "film and television editing ", which has great risk of infringement, and should pay more attention to the obligation, such as setting the size, duration and title of the upload file restrictions. However, the audio involved nearly two hours, not only the title contains the full name of the film involved, but also located in the first search results of the name of the film involved. Therefore, whether from the length of time, title or location, the video involved should be clearly perceived. Obviously, the defendant should be able to know that the audio in question was disseminated on his website and failed to pay due attention. To sum up, the defendant should know that the infringement of the plaintiff's right to disseminate information network by network users using their network services constitutes a helping infringement. Finally, the Beijing Internet Court of first instance decided that Kuan Entertainment Company to compensate Youku for economic losses of 60,000 yuan and reasonable expenses of 5000 yuan.

 In the case of the first instance judgement, the parties to the original defendant did not expressly indicate whether to appeal.

  Industry insiders pointed out that the current market in order to meet the diversified needs of users to view the film, through different ways to provide users with film appreciation services. But the protection of the copyright of film works will not be reduced because of the different ways in which it provides content. The decision made it clear that film audio is an important part of the original expression of the film, providing full film audio is still a form of use of the film, others must be authorized by the right holder before use, otherwise will bear the consequences of infringement.