Prosecutions for rights violations caused by video piracy have increased

Reporter Huang Huang Shanghai reported

Since acting as a movie and film copyright lawyer, lawyer Chen Feng (not his real name) has come into contact with many lawsuits arising from video piracy. However, the length of copyright lawsuits is long and the amount of compensation lost is very small. Even in the event of a successful outcome, it is very difficult for the copyright owner to force a strong deterrent to the pirates. It has always been very distressing.

Nowadays, as people's awareness of copyright increases and the listing of some video websites, the piracy phenomenon on some mainstream video websites has been greatly reduced. However, the phenomenon of piracy on some small websites is still prohibitive. In addition, new problems began to emerge as new technologies developed.

"The present phenomenon of piracy is no longer broadcasted broadcasted in broad sense, but wears the cloak of new technologies and new models." Chen Feng pointed out that "this has caused fatal trauma to the development of the industry and the difficulty of governance is also great."

Chen Feng said that the technical development and changes in the authorized environment make the current network video piracy more complex and less noticeable. And the corresponding judicial practice, also encountered a lot of problems. All this requires legislation, judiciary and administration to follow up as soon as possible and improve together.

Unfair compensation

In Chen Feng's impression, since 2008, cases of online copyright infringement have started to concentrate. At that time, he backlog a large number of copyright distributors rights case.

One by one to fight the lawsuit, but six months to one year long and grinding trial period. Infringement sites are not cooperative attitude, even more annoying.

"At that time, many infringing websites claimed that their content was uploaded by users and there was no subversion on the website, but in reality most of those dramas were up to dozens of episodes and were well edited. Dry. "Chen Feng pointed out.

Those sites got good traffic and advertising revenue through pirating TV series, but infringement compensation was much lower.

Chen Feng remember that before 2010, most online piracy infringement cases, the amount of compensation in a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars, generally not more than 50,000 yuan. This is less than a fraction of the loss for copyright owners who pirate a movie or TV series. In other words, the costs of piracy infringement are far less than the cost of buying the copyright.

It is reported that during that time, only a few Huayi Brothers movie set a record of compensation for movie network infringement. The "biggest names" released in 2004 were infringed upon by a Beijing-based video website that Huayi Brothers brought to court. In 2005, Haidian Court ruled that the infringing website compensated Huayi Brothers economic losses of 340,000 yuan. This was a very high figure at the time. This record in the subsequent years has not been exceeded until the end of 2009, "Assembly" network infringement case, Huayi Brothers received $ 350,000 in compensation for infringement, once again set a record.

According to China's "Copyright Law", infringers' copyright infringement should be compensated according to the actual loss of the obligee. If the actual losses are hard to calculate, the infringer may be compensated according to the illegal gains of the infringer. If both can not be determined, the people's court shall, according to the circumstances of the infringement, award a compensation of 500,000 yuan or less.

"For example, if the user on the site to watch a genuine movie need to pay 5 yuan, then if the film is broadcast on pirated sites for 1000 times, at least 5,000 yuan compensation for damages. In addition, the compensation can also refer to the copyright Purchase price, film production costs, etc. "Chen Feng said," However, in reality, the price of the copyright involved in trade secrets, most companies are reluctant to open, which also created obstacles to the recognition of compensation. "

On this basis, the court explained the amount of compensation more vaguely, often the result of "a combination of various factors". Chen Feng as a lawyer is not clear how these amounts are calculated.

In his view, the amount of online infringement penalty is lower, there may be two factors. First, there are many cases of this type. If the amount of compensation is too high, more people will be able to litigate the infringement. "But the judicial resources are limited, and there are too many such cases and the courts are too late for them to accept high damages." Second, video websites are new, and if they are fined too much, such sites are likely Will be closed down. If a group of video websites goes bankrupt, it will also have an adverse impact on society. In this case, the court's judgment is equivalent to disguising the rights activists.

Insiders said that now the new media copyright expensive, piracy first hurt, that is, those who respect the copyright of large video sites. You know, a lot of good drama new media revenue can account for 1/3 of the total copyright revenue. Once the case of piracy, online copyrights click rate advertising, traffic will be affected.

Challenges in the New Situation

With the continuous upgrading of technology, the characteristics of Internet infringement are constantly "developing." Initially, people stored and disseminated through the database, and later developed into a similar "eDonkey" P2P communication. In the second half of 2005 to 2006, a video sharing website appeared, and search links appeared shortly thereafter. Infringement of an endless stream of ways.

"Take Mango TV recently and love Fantastic Art dispute, Mango TV is actually playing a finale." Chen Feng analysis said, "Although there is no direct 360 Pirates of the" Where's the Dad 2 ", but the user opens the 360 After the link can be connected to the mango TV viewing, the equivalent of disguised users can view the show through the 360.

Examples of fast broadcasting also have similarities and differences. Although the fast broadcast itself is a player, does not directly produce piracy, but the relevant investigation shows that fast broadcast through the player to provide the public directional search, direct link service, directed search, link to a large number of pirated websites, with subjective fault, Constitute an infringement of information network dissemination rights, and undermine the public interest.

At the same time, through the technology provided by fast broadcasting, traffic, advertising network into the promotion and cost support, thousands of small pirated video sites formed a huge pirated video industry chain.

What is even worse is that some websites provide pirated links that access some unregistered or registered websites that are pirated abroad, which brings great difficulties to the relevant departments in tracing back and investigating.

On this basis, the spread of pirated movie and TV dramas through network drives has become popular in the near future. It is reported that in many film and television forums, some netizens through the personal network disk "free" to share the seeds of film and television drama, and behind this, there is also a chain of interests.

"Very often, some individuals post a link to a movie and TV show at a forum where a user clicks in and pops up a small site full of ads, and through this small site, users can eventually link to the big site Network disk to download. "Chen Feng said," as a transit site for small sites get advertising revenue, and according to the user's download, the person who posted the link with that small site advertising. "

In contrast, the more subtle forms of infringement are breed in various PT (Private Tracker) forums.

Chen Feng told reporters that most of the PT forum is very private, and relatively closed. Members joined to be reviewed, and some even need to pay. Most of these PT forums will broadcast some of the latest large-scale high-definition seeds abroad, with narrower and less visible coverage.

At present, the domestic administrative law enforcement departments have closed some PT websites and even detained part of the website staff. The most famous was undoubtedly be investigated in May this year, HD download site "Idea Network."

It is reported that the site under the portal, ideas Forum, and HDstar Forum as a site within the site. From January 2009 to April 2013, the website uploaded a large amount of film, music and other works of copyright to others to the HDstar Forum by way of membership, with the permission of the copyright holder, for download by more than 26,000 registered members , And made hard drive in Taobao sales. At the same time, thinking network through advertising, sales website registration invitation code and VIP membership profitable.

It is understood that this is the largest cracked in the domestic high-definition Blu-ray piracy sites operated by the case. Thinking network owner Zhou Zhiquan for copyright infringement, was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment and fined 1 million yuan. The remaining six people were sentenced to one to three years in prison for the same charges and fined 20,000 to 250,000 yuan.

There is no doubt that the case of cybernetics is a deterrent to the piracy still existing on the Internet. However, more often, penalties for criminal proceedings are large and time is correspondingly long, and the copyright owners are not entitled to financial compensation. Administrative enforcement speed, there is a certain degree of punishment, but the copyright holders are also not financially compensated.

Rights "combo boxing"

Simultaneous with the above-mentioned different modes of piracy, the changes in the domestic authorized environment. Chen Feng told reporters that with the genuine awareness of the video site enhanced, more or less each site can come up with some of the authorization documents, but these are likely to be authorized documents are not formal or incomplete - which is also accepted for the case Bring no small challenge.

In addition, another major environmental change is the development of new media. Mobile terminal, the rise of PAD side, greatly increasing the complexity of rights protection.

According to Chen Feng said that at present a lot of copyright authority is divided by the terminal, such as PC-side, mobile phone, smart TV and so on. But in fact, the mobile phone and the PC can transfer each other; the PC can also be directly connected to the TV screen through the data cable to watch, the boundaries are not clear. From this perspective, it is unscientific to divide the authorization by terminal.

In the other hand, there is no judicial definition of the corresponding rights of each type of terminal. "At present, there are two main types of copyright law in the Copyright Law that are related to the rights and interests of the Internet, one is the right to broadcast and the other is the right to disseminate information network. There are no different terminals defined here," Chen pointed out.

What is even more curious about all kinds of covert pirates is how the pirated movies that have become so popular in the internet are produced in the end. For the source of piracy, the industry said it is still a mystery. To some extent, this also reflects the difficulties of law enforcement and tracking. "The source of the gun version (bad quality video) usually comes from a movie theater, and the source of the clear version is not clear," said one insider.

In fact, there have been fewer and fewer pirated films directly copied in cinemas in recent years. "This kind of ripped film is less visible to the public, and people pay attention to the user experience." Chen Feng said: "There is an argument that foreign large-format films will be sent to make Blu-ray Discs when they are off the shelf. Piracy is done in blue Out of the disc during the process. "

At times, genuine DVDs and Blu-ray discs from some movies are not even on sale, and pirated movies are already circulating on the Web.

The "Thinking Network" that was closed two months ago and the method of piracy first downloaded audio-visual resources from websites both at home and abroad, and then cracked it to upload it to the forum in the form of seeds.

In the face of an endless stream of pirates, the studios also tried to trick. For example, from the 2010 film "Dream", publisher Bonaventure changed the way it works with video sites.

It is reported that, for the previous movie, Poly Bonaventure most exclusive license. The aftermath of doing so is that once the Internet piracy is discovered, Poly Bona can not defend its own rights, but must be based on the exclusive authority of the parties to safeguard their rights. As a result, lagged behind a lot, the most affected by the movie box office. Since then, Poly Bonavento will be exclusive licensing model to distribution mode, the film's online copyright is still in their own hands, so that piracy can take timely defensive actions.

Another copyright owner Huayi Brothers, in its popular movie "You Are the One" released also began not to sell network exclusive, without sub-delegation. It is reported that Huayi Brothers anti-piracy has two aspects, one is the establishment of the anti-piracy team across the country, the lawyers will promptly carry out notarized website infringement security, and then sent a letter to the infringing website asking it to immediately stop infringement. Huayi Brothers will bring legal proceedings against websites that are in bad condition and repeatedly infringement. At the same time, the company will also actively seek the help of relevant government departments.

Although it is not good enough to determine the source of pirated films, at the moment, this phenomenon is not completely uncontrollable. It is reported that foreign anti-piracy technology has been more mature. Hollywood now uses a watermarking technique that has a watermark on each copy, and the "watermark" in each legitimate copy of the movie is unique. These watermarks are a few dark or light spots repeated in the movie. In the event of piracy, once the copyrighted party is authenticated, it is possible to track which copy was leaked and even to what day of the month.

At present, similar technologies have been developed in China, but they have not yet been applied to the field of film anti-piracy. The future, the film and television industry is likely to promote the use of this technology.