Court settles Tencent, Douyin copyright issues

Chongqing courts have facilitated reconciliation between tech giants Tencent and Douyin by requiring their short-video platforms to filter and intercept videos that infringe on copyrights.

Tencent has filed a series of lawsuits in recent years against short-video app Douyin, which is operated by ByteDance, alleging unauthorized use of copyrighted content.

In June 2021, Tencent filed a lawsuit with the Chongqing No 1 Intermediate People's Court, arguing that content uploaded by some users on Douyin infringed on the copyright of Soul Land, known as Douluo Dalu in Chinese, a TV series produced by Tencent Video.

It asked the court to order compensation for economic losses and reasonable expenditures totaling 61.6 million yuan ($8.7 million). Tencent later increased the claim to 800 million yuan.

From June to Dec 10, 2021, Tencent sued Douyin 168 times in 13 provinces, according to a report by the Chinese media outlet ThePaper.cn.

In the same year, ByteDance also sued Tencent at the Chongqing No 1 Intermediate Court, claiming there were a large number of infringing videos involving the TV series Sword Out, also known as Liang Jian in Chinese, on Tencent Video.

It asked the court to order Tencent to delete the infringing videos, issue a statement of apology and pay 10 million yuan in compensation for economic losses.

In early April, the two parties reached a partnership agreement to explore the joint promotion of short and long videos after years of copyright disputes.

"We mediated between the two parties, and they reconciled on the short-video copyright infringement case with the highest litigation amount in the country (800 million yuan), effectively guaranteeing the healthy and orderly development of the internet video industry," said Li Yongli, president of the Chongqing Higher People's Court, in its latest work report on intellectual property rights trials.

The report said that from 2020 to 2022, Chongqing courts handled 70,847 IPR cases, the most in western China.

A number of major intellectual property cases involving the internet, standard patents, new plant varieties and well-known brands have been properly heard, it said.