Operators of app told to pay iQiyi for hacking
Print Edition
TWO operators of an android application were ordered to pay 100,000 yuan (US$15,613) to a popular video website by the Shanghai Pudong New Area People’s Court yesterday after they blocked the site’s online advertisements.
It was the city’s first intellectual property infringement case related to video website advertisements. The app, MoreTV, is available on set-top boxes, smart televisions and smartphones.
The two operators, Qianshan Network Technology and Yueguan Network Technology, will also have to pay additional 50,000 yuan as attorney’s fees to the video website, iQiyi.
The court also ordered the app’s operators to put out a statement, admitting unfair competition, on their homepages for 72 straight hours.
Like many other video websites, iQiyi offers free videos online with advertisements, which are played before the clips. Users can enjoy ad-free viewing by becoming a member. The advertisements and membership fees are important sources of income, the website claimed.
However, with MoreTV app, users can watch the videos without the ads, infringing on iQiyi’s intellectual property rights. The website filed a lawsuit and demanded more than 1 million yuan in compensation.
The firms denied they were blocking them deliberately and insisted it had more to do with crawling video links.
They claimed the videos and the advertisements were separate files. However, iQiyi argued that all its video links were encrypted, making it virtually impossible to watch the videos without hacking its algorithm.
At the trial, both sides employed professional assistants to press their case. But the defendants’ assistants were unable to back up its claims in the court.
The court ruled that removing iQiyi’s advertisements meant stealing part of iQiyi’s users, particularly those who wanted to enjoy an ad-free experience without paying to be a member, which led to unfair competition.
The chief judge, Zhu Dan, told Shanghai Daily that with complicated technologies in play, professional assistants can help the court to understand the case better and their statements can be accepted as the parties’ arguments.
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