More details disclosed on the infringement case of "Renren Film and Television Subtitle Group"! The defense counsel has presented a plea of not guilty

32824 unauthorized film and television works, a total of over 6.83 million members, and a total illegal business amount of over 12 million yuan... In November 2021, when the "Renren Film and Television Subtitle Group" was sentenced for copyright infringement, it attracted widespread attention from society.

On September 15th, the Supreme People's Procuratorate released the 48th batch of guiding cases, including the case of copyright infringement by 15 individuals including Liang Yongping and Wang Zhenghang. The head of the Intellectual Property Procuratorate of the Supreme People's Procuratorate responded to the clear rules for handling the case by the procuratorial organs.

Related case details

Since 2018, Liang Yongping has successively established Wuhan Chain World Technology Co., Ltd. and Wuhan Quick Translation Star Technology Co., Ltd., instructing Wang Zhenghang to hire Wan Mengjun and others to develop and operate the "Renren Film and Television Subtitle Group" website as well as Android, Apple, TV and other clients; Hire Xie Minghong and others to organize translators from overseas websites

Download unauthorized film and television works, translate, produce, and upload them to relevant servers, and provide users with online viewing and downloading services through the operated "Renren Film and Television Subtitle Group" website and related clients.

After appraisal and audit, the "Renren Film and Television Subtitle Group" website and related clients have a total of 32824 unauthorized film and television works, with a total membership of over 6.83 million.

In order to seek illegal profits, Liang Yongping arranged for Xie Wenxiang to be responsible for website and client advertising business, and arranged for Cong Junkai to be responsible for selling mobile hard drives on the website that contain unauthorized copies of film and television works. From January 2018 to January 2021, the total amount of illegal operations was over 12 million yuan, including membership fees of over 2.7 million yuan, advertising fees of over 8.8 million yuan, and profits of over 1 million yuan from selling hard drives.

On September 8, 2020, the Shanghai public security organs filed an investigation into the copyright infringement case of the "Renren Film and Television Subtitle Group". In view of the significant social impact of this case, the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau has put the principal offender Liang Yongping on file for investigation, and other suspect in the same case are put on file for investigation by the Hongkou District Public Security Branch.

On January 29, 2021, the Shanghai Hongkou District Procuratorate approved the arrest of 12 suspect including Wang Zhenghang. On February 1 of the same year, the Third Branch of the Shanghai Municipal Procuratorate approved the arrest of the suspect Liang Yongping.

According to the provisions on the jurisdiction of intellectual property cases in Shanghai, on July 5, 2021, the Shanghai Public Security Bureau transferred Liang Yongping to the Third Shanghai Branch for examination and prosecution, and the Hongkou Branch transferred 14 other suspect to the Hongkou District Procuratorate for examination and prosecution.

On August 20, 2021, the Shanghai Third Branch prosecuted the defendant Liang Yongping to the Shanghai Third Intermediate People's Court for copyright infringement, and the Hongkou District Procuratorate prosecuted 14 defendants including Wang Zhenghang to the Yangpu District People's Court of Shanghai for copyright infringement.

On November 22, 2021, the Third Intermediate People's Court of Shanghai and the People's Court of Yangpu District of Shanghai held separate hearings on the two cases. Liang Yongping was sentenced to three years and six months in prison and fined RMB 1.5 million for the crime of copyright infringement; Wang Zhenghang and 14 other accomplices were sentenced to imprisonment ranging from one year, six months to three years for copyright infringement, with probation and fines ranging from RMB 40000 to RMB 350000.

After the first instance verdict, all 15 defendants did not appeal.

Case details:

The defense counsel has presented a plea of innocence using the "safe harbor rules"

The "safe harbor rules" usually refer to the situation where the rights holder discovers that network users have infringed upon their legitimate rights and interests by using network services, and after issuing a notice to the network service provider, the network service provider takes necessary measures in a timely manner, and is not liable for infringement.

The prosecutor reads out the indictment

During the trial, the defense counsel of the defendant Liang Yongping proposed:

A large number of works from the involved website were uploaded by users, and the defendant has fulfilled the obligation of "notification deletion". Therefore, the "safe harbor rules" should not be deemed as infringement, and the way the website accepts donations from users should not be deemed as illegal business operations.

In response to this, the prosecutor defended,

Apart from some of the infringing works uploaded by users, there are also a large number of infringing works uploaded by accomplices such as Xie Minghong. Liang Yongping knew that there were a large number of infringing works on the website, but still instructed accomplices to upload and allowed users to continue uploading infringing works. He did not take effective measures to curb the spread of infringing works, and his defense against the "safe harbor rule" was not established.

Liang Yongping has published the "donation" QR code of Alipay on the website involved in the case. After "donation", members can obtain membership rights, including online viewing, exemption of some or all advertisements, different on-demand times, etc. This is a common profit model for film and television website platforms. Its essence is to collect membership fees in the name of "donation" and provide paid audio-visual services.

In the full text of the published guiding cases, it is also explicitly stated that in judicial practice, when faced with some online service providers claiming that they do not have subjective intent to infringe on copyright based on this rule, and then proposing a defense that does not constitute a crime, the procuratorial organs should accurately grasp the application conditions of the "safe harbor rule", and focus on examining and judging whether their innocence defense is valid from two aspects:

——Review the source of infringing works. Organizing online service providers to upload infringing works constitutes a direct infringement of the right to information network dissemination and is not subject to the "safe harbor rules";

——In the case of online users uploading infringing works, review whether the network service provider is aware of the infringement. If there is evidence to prove that the internet service provider subjectively allowed internet users to upload their works even though they knew they were infringing, or did not take necessary measures, they should be deemed to have subjective intent, and their innocence defense is not valid.

How to distinguish between "fair use" and "infringement of copyright"

The head of the Intellectual Property Prosecution Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate stated in response to questions that the nature of translating, copying, and disseminating audiovisual works should be accurately determined based on legal provisions and specific types of behavior, distinguishing situations.

The act of producing subtitles for the translation of foreign language films and TV dramas for personal learning, appreciation, school classroom teaching, scientific research, etc., in accordance with Article 24 of the Copyright Law, constitutes "reasonable use" and does not infringe upon the right.

However, acts aimed at profit, unauthorized reproduction and distribution, or dissemination of audiovisual works by others through information networks infringe upon the copyright of the rights holder, and serious circumstances may even constitute a crime.

——If there are a large number of infringing audiovisual works involved in the case, a sampling appraisal can be conducted by an appraisal agency, combined with the appraisal opinions of the rights holder, to comprehensively determine whether the works constitute substantial similarity.

In this case, the public security organs, based on the recommendation of the procuratorial organs, focused on conducting evidence collection on whether the involved film and television works were substantially similar to the works of the rights holder after the arrest. In view of the fact that the suspect mainly committed the crime by means of complete reproduction of works, it is comprehensively determined whether the film and television works involved in the case are substantially similar to the works of the obligee by means of sampling identification by the identification agency and in combination with the identification opinions of the obligee. 50 films will be randomly selected by the Copyright Appraisal Committee of the China Copyright Protection Center for substantive similarity appraisal.

At the same time, taking into account the ownership sources, content categories, and website section distribution of the involved works, a stratified sampling was conducted on the involved works, with 800 films of various genres such as movies, TV dramas, and documentaries selected. The relevant rights holders identified them by reading them one by one and comparing them with screenshots. The identification and identification results are both substantially similar in composition.

All suspect agree with the above evidence collection methods and results.

For the crime of online intellectual property infringement involving a large number of individuals, they should be classified and dealt with according to the criminal policy of combining leniency and severity.

The full text of the published case also clearly states that,

For those who have the intention to initiate crimes, lead the distribution of interests, organize management platforms, or play a major role in joint crimes, key crackdowns will be imposed and strict investigations will be carried out;

For other individuals involved in a joint crime who have a lower level of participation and are employed to commit the crime, they can be identified as accomplices and may be given lenient treatment as appropriate;

For temporary recruited personnel, if the intention of accomplice is weak, the circumstances are minor, and the harm is not significant, comprehensive consideration of the handling effect may be given, and criminal responsibility may not be pursued.

China Youth Daily Comprehensive: Justice Network of Procuratorial Daily