Pirated books sell more expensive than genuine books? Suspect's confession: 70% of the profits obtained were used to invest in pirated books. Suspect

Jiaxing Nanhu Police recently announced the investigation of a major copyright infringement case, involving a total amount of 32 million yuan.

This case originated from a promotional video that scholar Yi Zhongtian stumbled upon online in early March this year. The scene is his own, but the dubbing is not, and the sound and picture are inconsistent. Therefore, Yi Zhongtian judged that it is highly likely that the videos sold in this area are pirated books. In early April, based on the clues provided by the producer Guomai Culture regarding the sale of pirated copies of "Yi Zhongtian's Chinese History" on an e-commerce platform, the Food, Drug and Environmental Investigation Brigade of Jiaxing Public Security Bureau, together with relevant police officers of the city bureau and the Nanhu District Public Security Bureau, conducted a joint analysis and found multiple pirated book networks, which have formed a stable industrial chain integrating production, supply, and sales.

The Nanhu District Branch of Jiaxing Public Security Bureau initiated an investigation into the case. After more than 60 days of investigation, the special task force basically found out the information and criminal network structure of the book merchants, printing factories, e-commerce sales teams, and other personnel involved in the pirated books. In June this year, 42 police forces of the special task force carried out a unified network access operation in 7 places in 6 provinces, successfully cracked the huge copyright infringement case, captured 22 suspect, destroyed 1 illegal printing enterprise, stored and sold 5 illegal infringing copies, seized more than 100000 copies of infringing copies of finished products, and encoded more than 6 million yuan. The sales amount involved in the whole case reached more than 32 million yuan, and destroyed several black industrial chains that produced and sold pirated books infringing copyright. At present, the 11 main suspect in the case have been taken criminal coercive measures by the South Lake police according to law, and the case is under further investigation.

Identifying and discerning piracy is the first step in combating piracy. Wang Guangyu, Senior Product Manager of Guomai Culture, introduced that as a book publisher, we generally collect pirated information through two channels. Firstly, we actively search for relevant information through multiple channels such as social media platforms, shopping platforms, and offline bookstores, especially monitoring key books and best-selling books; The second step is to collect information provided by readers and authors for preliminary judgment, place an order to purchase the book for appraisal, summarize relevant information to the legal department, and protect rights through legal means. Li Wei, the legal director of Guomai Culture, revealed that since the beginning of this year, Guomai has handled 100 piracy cases through litigation and rights protection, and there are still 400 cases that have been proven.

The update of piracy methods on e-commerce platforms has made it more difficult to obtain evidence for pirated books. For example, the video link of Yi Zhongtian's "sales promotion" shocked the experienced Li Wei: a set of genuine books priced at 1080 yuan, with a regular channel price of around 600 yuan, and a pirated price marked as 845 yuan. Pirates are proficient in using short videos and live streaming platforms to invest and profit. According to the confession of the suspect arrested this time, 70% of the profits obtained from pirated books are used for investment.

At present, the common mode of rights protection in the book industry is to entrust rights protection services to law firms or professional rights protection institutions. For each pirated link, suing this pirated store after complete evidence collection has problems such as low efficiency, low compensation amount, and insufficient deterrence. "It's like playing a game of catching a mole. During the process of suing the rights protection family, dozens of them quickly emerged again, making it difficult to defend themselves," said Li Wei.

Further exploring new models of collaboration between enterprises and public security may serve as a reference for more book companies and consumers to protect their legitimate rights. Prior to this year's 3.15 Consumer Rights Protection Day, Nanhu District of Jiaxing City had already cracked a major copyright infringement case involving Guomai Books, with a total amount of up to 120 million yuan. Afterwards, Guomai Culture, headquartered in Shanghai, established a subsidiary in Nanhu, Jiaxing to carry out a comprehensive operation project for book copyright.

Xu Zheng, the captain of the Food, Drug and Environmental Investigation Brigade of Jiaxing Public Security Bureau, introduced: "We have equipped Guomai Culture with an intellectual property police liaison officer, and Guomai Culture has also appointed legal affairs as an enterprise intellectual property specialist to maintain efficient communication with intellectual property police officers on intellectual property protection." The resolution of this major copyright infringement case benefited from this intellectual property police liaison mechanism.