A photo company in Beijing filed a lawsuit against 12 foreign companies

Absrtact: Recently, a picture company in Beijing filed a lawsuit against 12 companies in the field, claiming hundreds of thousands of yuan.

Companies in order to decorate the site, from the Internet to download beautiful photos as a background, but do not know the infringement of other people's intellectual property rights. Recently, a picture company in Beijing filed a lawsuit against 12 foreign companies, claiming hundreds of thousands of yuan. In recent years, the copyright infringement of photographic works in China has occurred frequently, and the copyright protection of photographic works should not be neglected.

12 companies collectively sued for infringement

Last year, a photo company in Beijing found that a number of companies or institutions, without their authorization, used their copyrighted photographs on their websites and paid no compensation to them. These companies are involved in manufacturing, processing, service, medical and other industries.

After the discovery of these violations, the picture company on the one hand through the form of notarization to the infringement of the facts carried out evidence preservation, on the other hand commissioned a letter to the tort Unit to claim rights, hope to resolve the consultation. In the case of coordination, the photo company sued the 12 companies to the court, requesting the Court to decree the defendant company to immediately discontinue the use of the plaintiff's copyright photographic works, each defendant company compensation for copyright infringement compensation 20,000 yuan and the plaintiff to stop the infringement of the reasonable expenditure of 6500 yuan.

However, the respondent company is not willing to take responsibility. They said they were largely ignorant of their own violations until they received a letter from the company's lawyers. Because most of their website is commissioned professional network company production management, the site's pictures, content is also commissioned by the network companies themselves.

The presiding judge said that such a casual picture of others posted on their own website is very common, often a tort. Any picture works have copyright, only authorized, can be legally used. Any use for commercial purposes with an expanded promotional character is subject to payment. The defendant company should fulfill the management responsibility in the website management.

In the end, the plaintiff's picture company filed a lawsuit against the defendant to settle the case, and the defendant company paid the picture Company a one-time fee.

Remake photos not protected by copyright law

Photographic works are protected by copyright law, what kind of works belong to photographic works? In this respect, Chaoyang District Court of Intellectual property, President Lin Ziying said that the legal definition of photographic work is clearer, first of all to make clear that the work is original, but also have the ability to reproduce, that it should conform to the "originality and can be reproduced in a tangible form of intellectual achievements." A remake of a photograph is not a work protected under copyright law.

Judging from the practice of trial, the factors that make up the photographic works are as follows: the creation of the photographic works is mainly embodied in the selection of the shooting place, the object, the angle of the shooting, the light intensity and so on. Even if the same scene is taken at the same location, if the photographer chooses different angle and light, the work is different. A work of different angles, the use of different light and shade, will produce different artistic effects, will give people with different cognitive feelings. In the trial practice, the grasp scale of photographic works is relatively loose, or the requirement of originality is not very high.

As for the copyright attribution of job photography, the copyright law stipulates that the general job photography copyright belongs to the author (employee), the unit can be used in the business scope, the work is completed within two years, without the consent of the unit, the author may not permit the third person to use the work in the same way as the With the consent of the unit, the author permits the third person to use the work in the same way as the unit, by the author and the organization according to the agreed proportions. This right belongs to the general principle, which requires that the natural person who created the work must be the staff member of the unit. The work must be created to fulfill the task. Another kind of special photography title works copyright belongs to the unit, the author only has the right of signature and reward, this right belongs to the exception.

The amount of compensation for infringement is large

At present, neither the legal provisions, nor the relevant judicial interpretation, there is no corresponding provisions on the compensation for photographic works. Copyright law stipulates that infringement of copyright or copyright-related rights, the infringer should be in accordance with the actual loss of the right to pay compensation; the actual loss is difficult to calculate, according to the infringement of the illegal income to be compensated. The amount of compensation should also include reasonable expenses paid by the obligee to stop the infringement. If the actual loss of the obligee or the illegal income of the infringer cannot be ascertained, the People's Court shall award compensation under 500,000 yuan according to the circumstances of the infringement.

Lin Ziying said that the compensation of photographic works should consider its characteristics. On the one hand, the input of photographic works, compared with other writing works, the material cost is larger. such as equipment input, film costs, selection of the cost of the scene. On the other hand, it is the relationship between the use of photographic works and its economic benefits. From the trial practice, photographic works are used in different ways, in books, advertisements and Web sites (web). The use of the book has a different performance, have to do the back cover, covers, le Kou place used, but also as a book map use. Advertising on the use of outdoor advertising, newspaper advertising use, the use of the layout is also different. Some of these uses are directly related to the publicity purposes and benefits of advertising, while others are not directly related, so there will be significant differences in amount. In the trial practice, according to different cases, different works, different use situation will produce different compensation results, the amount of compensation also varies greatly, ranging from hundreds of to hundreds of thousands of yuan.

It is understood that the various courts of photographic work of the amount of compensation for the calculation of the standard is inconsistent, however, the following two methods are usually applied in determining the amount of compensation: first, 2-5 times the amount of compensation to be determined on the basis of reasonable expected income that the obligee may obtain, in which the reasonable expected income may be the discretionary payment standard of remuneration, It is also possible that the rights of the right person to set the licensing standards, may also be related to industry standards, the second is based on the historical and cultural value of photographic works, tort circumstances, and other factors, the court discretionary infringement compensation. In such cases, there are sometimes cases of high compensation, such as cases where a single photograph has been awarded a $130,000.