Recently, Jiangsu Higher People's Court (hereinafter referred to as Jiangsu high court) made a final judgment on the case of Beijing Focus Interactive Information Service Co., Ltd. Nanjing Branch (hereinafter referred to as focus company) v. Beijing Baidu Internet Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Baidu company) for infringing the right of information network communication, revoked the first judgment, and ordered Baidu company not infringing the information network communication of focus company Right to reject all claims of the focus company.
It is reported that 《in hurry year》 was a popular TV play on Sohu Video Platform in August 2014. In 2017, focus company sued Baidu for infringing its right of information network communication to Nanjing Intermediate People's Court of Jiangsu Province (hereinafter referred to as Nanjing Intermediate Court). The focus company believes that Baidu online disk spreads the film and television works of 《in hurry year》 in three forms of second transmission, offline download and sharing, and provides online broadcast service of the works to Internet users through Baidu online disk. After the focus company provides MD5 value (a file information summary algorithm value) of the series of 《in hurry year》 for complaints, Baidu company does not delete the works involved in the server Therefore, the court is requested to determine that Baidu company constitutes an infringement and compensate 3 million yuan.
Baidu company argued that the baidu online disk it operates is to provide users with internet information storage space services. The focus company has no evidence to prove that there are infringement works involved in Baidu online disk, and Baidu online disk is managed, shared and downloaded by users themselves, which is not widely disseminated; the notice of the focus company does not belong to effective notice, Jiao The point company uses MD5 value for complaint and cannot accurately locate the infringing content, so Baidu company has not infringed the information network communication right of the film and television works involved in the case of the focus company.
In October 2018, Nanjing Intermediate Court made a first instance decision on the case, and determined that Baidu company did not constitute a direct infringement, but constituted a helping infringement. The work involved in the case should be deleted, and the plaintiff's economic loss and reasonable expenses should be compensated 500000 yuan.
The first trial decision of this case is the first time that the court explicitly requires the online disk to search and delete the same file stored by all users in the online disk server according to the MD5 value of the film and television works provided by the obligee. In this regard, it is believed that if the first trial decision takes effect, it may have a significant impact on the operation mode of the network disk, and cause a serious damage to the network disk storage enterprise. Subsequently, Baidu company refused to accept the first trial decision and appealed to Jiangsu high court.
In the second instance of the case, both focus company and Baidu company submitted new evidence. According to Jiangsu Academy of higher learning, the behavior of online disk users storing the works involved in the case and Baidu online disk providing storage space for users do not constitute an infringement of the right to network dissemination of the works involved in the case. The focus company only complains that there are works involved in the case in Baidu online disk, but does not complain about any specific work communication behavior, and does not provide any work sharing link, which cannot be regarded as sending an effective infringement notice to Baidu. Therefore, it can not be considered that Baidu's delay in fulfilling the obligation of "notice delete" does not constitute helping infringement.
In addition, Jiangsu Academy of higher learning also commented on the legal characteristics of Baidu online disk. It believed that compared with the public information publishing platform such as the post bar, the online disk is more private and can be regarded as the extension of hardware physical equipment space such as the user's personal computer and mobile phone in the network environment. As the product mode of Baidu online disk is to store only one copy of the same file, if Baidu online disk deletes the file in the server according to the obligee's requirements, all users who store the file will be damaged, and the online disk users who store the file do not exclude the situation that they have the right or reasonable use. In the process of protecting the rights of the obligee, we should also respect the legitimate rights of others, and require Baidu online disk to delete the files stored by users without any difference, which is beyond the scope of rights protection, and it is easy to cause the imbalance of interests among online disk users, information storage space network operators and obligees.
Accordingly, the Jiangsu high court made the final judgment of canceling the first trial and rejecting all the plaintiff's claims. In this regard, some experts said that since last year, China's judicial department has shown greater tolerance to intellectual property infringement disputes involving Internet model innovation. The judgment of the case reflects the judicial tolerance and prudence for the new business forms, new technologies and new models of the Internet. In the future, the relevant departments of intellectual property protection should actively respond to the infringement that may be caused by new technology development, new application scenarios and new business operation in the process of market expansion, further improve and enhance the data information management ability and technology processing ability of intellectual property protection, and reasonably prevent and handle intellectual property infringement.
