Brief of the case

    Authorized by the author, a publishing house obtains the exclusive publishing right of a book (hereinafter referred to as the book involved) in accordance with the law. Hu opened a store in the e-commerce platform operated by a limited company (hereinafter referred to as the store involved), sold pirated books involved in the case (hereinafter referred to as the accused books), and promoted and sold the accused books in the short video platform operated by a science and technology company. A publishing house believes that Hu Mou sold the accused books without permission, which infringed its exclusive publishing rights on the books involved. A limited company, as the operator of the e-commerce platform, and a technology company, as the operator of the short video App, provided convenience and help for Hu mou to sell the accused books, and failed to fulfill the platform's audit obligations, constituting an infringement of help, so the lawsuit was brought to the court. Therefore, the three defendants are requested to jointly compensate a publishing house for economic losses of 165,397 yuan and reasonable expenses of 12,020 yuan.

Court hearing

    The court of first instance held that a publishing house enjoyed the exclusive publishing right of the book involved in the case according to law. Hu Mou without permission, in the short video platform in the way of short video promotion, publicity of the accused books, and through the store involved in the sale of the accused books, infringed the exclusive publishing rights enjoyed by a publishing house. Although Hu claimed that the accused books were purchased by a third party, he did not know that the books he sold were pirated books, but he did not submit the relevant vouchers for his purchase of the accused books. As an operator based on the sale of books, he should have a certain ability to identify the quality, price and supply source of the books he sold, and the accused books are quite different from the books involved, and there is no anti-counterfeiting mark. Accordingly, the court did not accept the legal source defense. As for a limited company and a technology company, the court held that as the operator of an e-commerce platform and a technology company as the operator of a short video platform, respectively, they had fulfilled their reasonable duty of care and did not need to bear the corresponding responsibility.

    Finally, the court combined the popularity of the books involved, the sales volume of the accused books and the sales unit price consistent with the legitimate books, Hu's subjective fault, the number of likes and comments of the short video used to promote the accused books and other factors, determined that Hu compensated a publishing house 70,000 yuan and reasonable expenses of 1,520 yuan. After the verdict of the first instance of the case, a publishing house and Hu Moumou appealed, and the second instance upheld the original verdict.

Judge's statement

    This case is a typical case of propaganda, promotion and sale of pirated books by short video. With the rise of online emerging channels such as short video and live broadcast, the consumption habits of the new generation of consumers have gradually changed, and the sale of books by live broadcast or short video has become a new way and track for the book publishing industry to expand the market. However, some sellers of pirated books use live broadcast and short video platforms to sell pirated and infringing publications, and even sell them at the same price as genuine books, seriously disrupting the healthy development order of the book publishing industry in the emerging field. The judgment of this case gives a negative judicial evaluation on the behavior of selling pirated books through short video platforms, and takes full account of the income obtained through this way in the amount of compensation, and evaluates the duty of care due by short video platforms and e-commerce platforms in building a system for preventing and controlling pirated books, which is conducive to maintaining a good order of book publishing and protecting the interests of authors. Optimize the business environment of the book sales platform.

    This article is transferred from the "Beijing Haidian Court" wechat public number, thank you!