All identities and voices have been tampered with, and the graduation speeches of female college deans have been "replayed"
In an 8-second video sent by a student, Li Qinyan, Dean of the School of Culture and Media at Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences, saw that her speech at the graduation ceremony last year had been modified to "Ten Years of Class Teacher's Advice". In this video, Li Qinyan's voice and identity information have been tampered with, serving as a platform for sharing a good middle school book. It was only then that she realized she might have been infringed upon.
In response to this, the person in charge of account operation at Shandong Yiben Book Co., Ltd., the party involved, admitted in an interview with Red Star News on September 20th that this was indeed material that employees had "scraped" online. They cut a video related to the product, which had a playback volume of about 50000. Currently, it has all been taken down and is being negotiated with Dean Li to handle it.
The lawyer stated that the book company's actions are suspected of infringing on Ms. Li's reputation, portrait rights, and corresponding copyright, and should bear civil liabilities such as stopping the infringement, eliminating the impact, apologizing, and compensating for losses.
▲ The left image is a screenshot of a video suspected of infringement, and the right image is a screenshot of the original video
The graduation speech was tampered with as "class teacher's advice"
Li Qinyan vividly remembers her surprise when she saw the video. On the afternoon of September 18th, her former student sent her a video. The student told her that she was very interested when she saw a book recommended by her teacher, but was about to buy it. The student couldn't help but feel puzzled, "No, the teacher is not teaching in this direction." Therefore, she sent it to inquire.
In this video, Li Qinyan stated that her identity and voice have been tampered with. "After silencing the original video, I changed my identity to 'teaching Chinese for over a decade and also serving as a class teacher for 10 years'."
Li Yanqin told reporters that the original video was her speech at the graduation ceremony of the college last year, which was published on the @ official Tiktok account of the Youth League Committee of Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences, with 49000 hits. The Red Star News reporter saw that the original video title was "Seeing the Power of Women, All Girls Giving a Speech at the Graduation Ceremony of the Female Dean", while in the suspected infringement video, the title was changed to "Ten Years of Class Teacher's Advice, the Focus of Middle School Chinese Language is Reading and Understanding". The voice over in the video explained, "If you have a junior high school student at home, hurry up and prepare a set. I have been teaching Chinese for more than ten years, and I sincerely give you a suggestion to memorize a reading comprehension answer template every day." Below the video, there is also a link to enter the "Sharing a Good Junior High School Book" account live broadcast room.
According to her understanding, "Yiben" is popular on Tiktok and has opened many video accounts. They also use the video on many APPs for promotion. After watching the video, Li Qinyan's colleague told her, "I just bought the one you recommended." She could only helplessly tell the other party that this was not what she recommended.
Li Yanqin believes that the other party has tampered with their identity, infringed on the right to portrait, and used it for commercial purposes, which is illegal. She contacted the official customer service immediately to delete it, but they blocked her. After filing a complaint on the video platform, customer service pulled her out and asked, "Which video infringed?" However, when she sent the infringing video, the other party did not reply.
The book company apologizes, stating that the material was found by a new employee online
The reporter learned that the "Yiben Good Book Sharing" account belongs to the Changsha branch of Shandong Yiben Book Co., Ltd. Its parent company, Shandong Yiben Book Co., Ltd., was established in 2018 and is mainly engaged in the retail industry.
The holding company Guangzhou Kaixin Cultural Book Co., Ltd. was listed on the New Third Board in 2017, with a total market value of over 180 million yuan. As mentioned in the company profile, Happy Culture Company was founded in 1999 and has been focusing on the planning and distribution of educational materials for primary and secondary school students for more than 20 years. It has two major brands, "Happy" and "Yiben", and has developed, planned, and distributed more than 1200 varieties of books. It has been awarded the title of "Guangdong Province Integrity Demonstration Enterprise" for three consecutive years and the title of "2014 Guangdong Province Famous Trademark".
▲ Company Introduction
The reporter also learned that the School of Culture and Media of Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences was established in 1976, with departments of Chinese and Media. The Radio and Television Directing major is a national first-class professional construction site, and the Chinese Language and Literature major is also a first-class undergraduate professional construction site in Chongqing. Li Qinyan stated that the college itself is related to the Chinese language and literature teacher training program, and the students trained happen to be engaged in primary and secondary school Chinese education. Her own students work as teachers in primary and secondary schools across the country, which matches the sales targets of book companies. Therefore, she suspected that the other party's choice of the target audience for the infringing video was "intentional". "If my students believe it, I will give them a platform; if they don't believe it, it will damage my personal reputation and the reputation of the school." She didn't want her students, colleagues, cooperative units, etc. to misunderstand her and "endorse" the platform for a book after watching the video, "which would greatly affect my personal reputation."
Secondly, many students in the college will have to work in the media in the future. She believes that "if this matter is even tolerated by teachers, students may think that there is no need to adhere to professional norms and ethics, and may deviate in the future." Therefore, she insists on seeking an explanation for this matter, stating that she does not accept verbal apologies and that the book company needs to publicly apologize and provide compensation. She didn't want any compensation and said, "Use this money to set up a competition bonus for students, specifically to make comments in this regard."
▲ Tiktok account publishing suspected infringing videos
On September 20th, the account operation manager of a company contacted Li Qinyan. During the conversation between both parties, the person in charge stated that "the video was cut by a 'child'." He apologized for the material he found online that had been spread many times.
Li Qinyan expressed dissatisfaction. She believes that "the original video had subtitles, and he knew my identity." Before the release, the company did not verify, and after the incident, "let the 'child' take the blame, without even basic sincerity."
Later, the reporter interviewed a person in charge of the company's account operation, who said that their employees did indeed "pick up" the material on the Internet and cut a video related to the product, "using Mr. Li's video as the beginning of the early stage.
He said that the video did not actually cause any malicious consequences to Teacher Li, nor did it damage his personal reputation. "New media channels are relatively fast, and many will find materials online to publish." Currently, the company is also discussing a solution internally, hoping to resolve this matter through negotiation. In the future, they will also strengthen the review process for video releases.
Lawyer: Unauthorized tampering with identity and voice, suspected of infringement
As the commissioned lawyer of Li Qinyan, lawyer Diao Yimin from Chongqing Yousheng Law Firm believes that the actions of a company have infringed on Ms. Li's reputation and portrait rights. Without the consent of Ms. Li, the other party used the video of her speech for commercial sale on public platforms such as Tiktok, and violated her portrait right in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Civil Code. As a teacher, promoting a textbook in a video by Ms. Li will also reduce others' social evaluations of her, including her moral character, reputation, credit, and other aspects.
Lawyer Lin Xiaoming, a partner of Sichuan Yishang Law Firm, stated that if the situation is true, the company is suspected of infringing on Li Qinyan's relevant rights, including copyright, and should bear corresponding responsibilities. According to the Copyright Law, Li Qinyan's video speeches can be classified as "oral works" or "film works and works created by similar filming methods". As the copyright owner, she enjoys the rights of publication, attribution, modification, protection of work integrity, and information network dissemination. The act of a company arbitrarily altering its identity, voice, etc. is suspected of infringing on its corresponding rights. According to the law, a company shall bear civil liabilities such as cessation of infringement, elimination of influence, apology, and compensation for losses.
In addition, "editing by a child in the company" does not change the fact of infringement, as the editing behavior belongs to professional behavior and has been reviewed by the company. Therefore, the company should bear responsibility for the infringement behavior.
According to relevant compensation standards, the infringer shall compensate the right holder according to their actual losses; Difficult to calculate, compensation can be given based on illegal gains. The compensation amount should include reasonable expenses paid to prevent infringement. If the actual losses of the rights holder or the illegal gains of the infringer cannot be determined, the people's court shall, based on the circumstances of the infringement, award compensation of no more than 500000 yuan.
At present, Li Qinyan has entrusted a lawyer to send a lawyer's letter to the other company.
