Better regulation of tipping behaviors urged to boost livestreaming sector

A number of judicial officials, legal experts, and internet platform operators have suggested strengthening the regulation of tipping behaviors in livestreaming to promote the healthy development of the industry within a rule-of-law environment.

They made the suggestion during a recent seminar on livestreaming tipping services, which was held by the Renmin University of China.

When discussing whether tipping is a behavior of gift or consumption, Meng Qiang, a law professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology, said that he agrees with the latter view.

In his opinion, livestreamers offer services such as singing, dancing, and emotional support, while users provide tips in exchange for these services, fulfilling their needs and providing emotional satisfaction. As a result, a service contract relationship is established between users, the livestreaming platform, and the livestreamers.

"Therefore, livestreaming tips are essentially a form of consumption rather than a gift," he added. The viewpoint has been confirmed in some court cases.

Tao Tao, a judge from the Beijing Tongzhou District People's Court, refined the distinction between user actions on livestreaming platforms, suggesting that charging accounts should be considered a prepayment behavior and tipping should be recognized as a consumption behavior under a new service model.

The two experts, along with other participants, also exchanged ideas at the seminar on whether illicit funds used for tipping on livestreaming platforms should be recovered. They noted that this depends on whether the streamers know that the money is illegal.

Additionally, the participants discussed the legal issues surrounding tipping by children and using marital assets for tipping.

Considering the complexity of these issues in this sector, they jointly called on legislative and judicial bodies to further study and refine the criteria for determining whether livestreamers are bona fide recipients in cases involving illicit funds used for tipping.

They also urged the improvement of procedural rules for the recovery of such funds, aiming to enhance the fairness, transparency, and credibility of the judicial process, while guiding compliance in the technological and business model innovations of livestreaming platforms.