Over 300 Internet cafes in Dongguan are involved in collective Infringement

In the consciousness of many Internet cafe owners, it is one of the most basic "survival skills" to place videos downloaded from the Internet on the LAN to attract customers. However, this is a common practice, internet cafes in Dongguan are involved in an infringement storm.Recently, our reporter was exclusively informed that due to alleged network infringement, Dongguan Internet cafes collectively received Guangdong Zhongkai Culture Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Guangdong Zhongkai ") and Beijing wangshang culture communication Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "wangshang") issued more than 300 lawyers, 13 of which 14 cases have been sued to the court.

Investigation: most Internet cafes do not know the infringement of downloaded films

"What's the matter ?" Even though the case was already opened in 6th day of this month, Ning's boss (not a real name) of zhongtang's Internet cafe was still puzzled, and he was unable to accept the infringement lawsuit against Guangdong Zhongkai.

Prior to this lawsuit, Mr. Ning was not aware that he was suspected of infringement when downloading a video from the Internet to the customer on demand. Boss Ning's Internet cafe is the first batch of regular Internet cafes in Dongguan that have been produced by shaking beads. "At the beginning, the business was good. After the second batch of Internet cafes were built, it was not easy to save the cost now ." Boss Ning complained to reporters.

Boss Ning is just a typical example of many Internet cafe owners in Dongguan. Among the awareness of many Internet cafe owners, downloading videos from the Internet for on-demand guests is one of the "most basic skills" for the survival and development of the Internet cafe industry, I have never heard of any problems.

Many of the Internet cafes surveyed by reporters have established their own "movie library" through the LAN ". A staff member of an internet cafe told reporters that online Cinemas generally restrict traffic, and many people will be stuck when watching the video. However, the self-built "movie library" has no traffic limit, so playing smoothly. Therefore, in order to attract customers, Internet cafes often download movies from the Internet for customers to VOD, but basically these downloaded movies are not authorized. "We don't know what further authorization is required ." The staff defended.

What worries many Internet cafe owners even more is that, if Guangdong Zhongkai and wangshang's claims generate a chain reaction, then "after the compensation is done, the business will not be done at all, and the internet cafe will definitely collapse ."

Lawsuit: infringement of a movie claims 30 thousand yuan

In the absence of any mental preparation from many Internet cafe owners, from July this year to August, the investigation teams of Guangdong Zhongkai and wangshang went to Dongguan. "For large Internet cafes with more than 200 machines in Dongguan, we sent three or four market supervisors to conduct a concentrated investigation ." Zhang hongxia, an attorney for Guangdong Zhongkai, told reporters. The results show that each Internet cafe has two infringing movies on average.

Wangshang also found that many Internet cafes in Dongguan were used free of charge in the two TV series "Jin Zhiyu" and "Drunk Jinzhi", which they exclusively copyrighted in the Mainland.

In order to obtain evidence of infringement, the investigator took the camera and went to the internet cafe with the staff of the notary office. After completing the registration and prepayment procedures at the front-end of the service, he chose one of the computers to log in and watched part of the film, the whole process of forensics was recorded and the notarization site survey record was created.

On June 18, Guangdong Zhongkai filed a lawsuit against nine Internet cafes in Dongguan, while wangshang filed a lawsuit against five Internet cafes. One of them was a dual defendant. Guangdong Zhongkai proposed that each film should compensate 30 thousand yuan for economic losses and a reasonable expenditure of 5650 yuan, including public license fee, legal counsel fee, and industrial and commercial filing fee; the Internet still requires that each TV series compensate for the loss of 70 thousand yuan and reasonable expenses.

"Through litigation, we want to let everyone know that the era of free watching movies in Internet cafes has passed, and the previous operation of Internet cafes is wrong ." Said Zhang hongxia.

Subsequently, the reporter learned from the Legal Counsel of Dongguan Internet Association Wang Yifei that more than 300 Internet cafes in Dongguan have received lawyers from Guangdong Zhongkai and wangshang companies. "In the first batch of litigation, they are issuing a warning, and they are also launching a stone exploration ."

Focus: The amount of compensation is the focus of both parties

In the interview, the reporter noted that the amount of compensation has become the focus of both parties. One of the nine Internet cafes sued by Guangdong Zhongkai has settled after the filing. However, both parties are reluctant to disclose the amount of compensation due to concerns about the impact of the decision.

It is understood that because neither the internet cafe nor the plaintiff can provide accurate evidence of the film's benefits, the judge's discretion will be the method of determining the compensation amount in the series.

Zhang hongxia, an attorney for Guangdong Zhongkai, told reporters that "Guangdong Zhongkai paid 13.9 million yuan of copyright fee for a" Promise, every investigation into an Internet cafe requires the payment of several thousand yuan of Public license fee, attorney fee, and industrial and commercial filing fee." "If the compensation for a movie is less than 10 thousand yuan, our rights protection will not continue ."

Lawyer Wang Yifei, legal counsel of Dongguan Internet Association, said, "according to the evidence we have submitted, the maximum benefit of a film is several hundred yuan ." He explained that there are hundreds of movies and TV series in the movie library of an Internet cafe, and the hit rate of the films involved is not high. Moreover, "Internet cafe operation has entered the era of meager profit, and most Internet cafes have suffered from poor operation ."

According to the reporter's understanding, in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Law, a judge may decide to pay compensation of more than 500 Yuan and less than 0.5 million yuan based on the type of work, reasonable usage fee, nature and consequences of the infringement. In actual cases, the Guangzhou court ruled last year that a movie infringing on an internet cafe would compensate 3000 yuan. On November 14 this year, the Nanhai Court of Foshan ruled that a film infringing on two Internet cafes would compensate 30 thousand yuan.