
Beijing's Internet Court has decided its first case -- a dispute between two video apps. Photo: VCG
Beijing’s first-ever internet court case has come to an end.
The object of the dispute? A 13-second video published on a popular app.
Short-video app TikTok sued Chinese internet giant Baidu and Baidu’s own video app Huopai in September for copyright infringement, requesting monetary compensation. TikTok said it owns the exclusive copyrights to a user video published on its platform, which Huopai had published without TikTok’s permission. Huopai also allowed its users to download the video, TikTok said.
The Beijing Internet Court ruled Wednesday that short videos online can enjoy the same copyright protections as television and radio program, answering a key question in the case, Beijing News reported.
The court said that as an online publishing platform, TikTok, which is known in China as Douyin, had the right to file a lawsuit. However, it ruled that Baidu’s actions did not constitute copyright infringement, because Baidu is an online service provider, and it immediately deleted the video when asked to by TikTok.
This case attracted much attention as the first case ever heard by Beijing’s Internet Court, one of the country’s three courts that handle disputes originating online. The hearing was conducted online and the court accepted digital evidence stored on blockchain.