Xinhua News Agency, Jinan, March 31, title: No guarantee, vulnerable to fraud, nearly 10,000 yuan of genuine online course piracy sells for only 5 yuan-why is pirated online course so much? How to rule?
Xinhua News Agency reporters Shao Luwen and Yang Wen
"I spent nearly 10,000 yuan on live English lessons in this small class, but pirated online lessons cost only 5 yuan." Recently, with the rapid development of online education, online lessons have become the "new favorite" for millions of households. At the same time, the problem of piracy online courses has also intensified.
Intellectual property is not to be infringed, and "stealing" is also considered "stealing." Where does the "continuous" piracy online course come from? What are the difficulties in combating governance? How to improve governance effect? Xinhua News Agency reporters launched an investigation.
Low prices, wide types, and spread of easy-to-piracy online courses
According to industry reports issued by multiple copyright service agencies, compared with 2018, piracy and infringement incidents in 2019 increased by a large year-on-year rate, and various online courses are among the "heavy disaster areas". The reporter found that the current piracy online course is characterized by low prices, complete resources and easy dissemination.
Cheap is the biggest selling point of pirated online courses. Xiao Zhang, a junior at Ocean University of China, recently discovered that he had previously spent about 4,000 yuan to sign up for a Japanese online class, and that pirated videos had only sold for 15 yuan. There are also consumers who said, "I bought two 799 yuan courses on Ape Coaching and found that online piracy only costs 10 yuan."
In the sale of pirated online courses, "resources are complete." The reporter found that pirated online courses include national legal professional qualification examination training, civil service examination training, postgraduate examination training, various language level examinations, computer level examination training and other popular examination training, as well as video editing software teaching, elementary mathematics training Speaking of other aspects.
"Third-party platforms such as Taobao, Freefish, Pinduoduo, WeChat Store, Baidu Post Bar, etc., have merchants selling our online courses without authorization, in addition to sharing account links, including network disk resource sharing." Reporter From the online education institution Ape Coaching, we learned that the Internet second-hand trading platform and online social platform group have become common trading platforms for pirated online courses.
A classmate introduced that directly searching for keywords on social platforms such as Weibo will find an account for selling lessons, and the transactions will be diverted to WeChat or Alipay. A classmate from a university in Anhui told reporters that he and his classmates purchased pirated online courses through the free fish platform. After the transaction is completed, the seller will send Baidu cloud links with pirated online course content for downloading. It is “very convenient” to use and share. .
The reporter searched keywords such as "teaching" and "courses" on the leisure fish platform, and found that an account sells online courses at an education institution's official website for 150 yuan at a price of 2.4 yuan, with over 1,000 views. Searching for "Faokao Video" on Weibo found that accounts such as "Orlando_J" and "Finda Win Love" have pirated online course resources for sale.
Eradication of piracy e-learning remains difficult
Experts believe that, in recent years, China's enforcement of intellectual property rights has continued to increase, but piracy online courses have continued to be repeated for various reasons.
——The "industrial chain" of some pirated online course production and sales takes shape, and the "online communication + offline agency" model increases the difficulty of governance. Industry insiders have revealed to reporters that there are criminals who specially set up a team to rip genuine online classes and sell them online through screen recording software. Special persons are responsible for ripping videos, uploading resources, and online promotion. Some "large-scale" pirated course sellers will also establish WeChat groups and develop agents to further promote pirated resources.
A reporter found a WeChat group named "Public Examination Steward" in a 500-person WeChat group selling pirated online courses. After paying him 20 yuan to purchase several sets of public examination training courses, he told reporters that he hoped that journalists would participate in the promotion of selling pirated online courses after the exam and promised that journalists would "make money."
——Most of the pirated online course transactions are hidden in various network platforms, but the responsibilities of related platforms are very limited. The reporter learned that although some related trading keywords are disabled on related platforms, as long as the keyword fonts are changed slightly, some accounts can even add words such as "high scores, timely updates, and overwork" to attract buyers.
Zang Lei, member of the China Intellectual Property Research Association, said that the current online trading platform or network service provider has limited intellectual property review obligations on the content of transactions between third parties in its trading platform, and only undertakes the As a responsibility. Although this is good for balancing legal protection in related fields, it is not good for guiding Internet platforms to fulfill their prudential obligations.
——Current online education industry has low willingness to defend intellectual property rights and high costs. Zang Lei believes that in the early stages of the development of the online education industry, due to fierce competition, related companies tended to "tangled" between the "advertising effect" of pirated products and copyright protection. A well-known "Faokao" training institution partner told reporters that although the field has suffered from piracy online courses for a long time, because many companies have severely affected "popularity" because of cracking down on piracy, causing huge losses to the company. Online lessons "Dare to be angry or dare to scream."
The poor service quality of some online education institutions also makes piracy “opportunity”. Some consumers have told reporters that they have purchased pirated online courses from a well-known foreign language training institution and found that they are “easier to use than official website software”.
Experts: Piracy online course hurts business, hurts customers, hurts social governance or becomes a protracted war
"Piracy courses are a" malignant tumor "for consumers, copyright companies, and the social innovation environment." A number of online course copyright companies such as Ape Coaching told reporters that companies have invested heavily in cultural product innovation, and pirated online courses directly Violating the legal rights of enterprises, seriously eroding the driving force for social innovation, and causing damage to consumers.
"The course content is incomplete, the video clarity is very poor, and then contact the seller to ignore me at all." Said Xiao Sun, a senior student at Shandong Women's University. He Chen, deputy director of the Intellectual Property Department of the Law School of Anhui University, reminded that many students had reported to her that there were many omissions in pirated online courses that were eager to buy at low prices, and the content could not be updated in time, which seriously affected learning. There are also merchants who deliberately sell outdated pirated online courses to students, and even directly engage in online fraud.
It has become a consensus to continue to increase efforts to combat online piracy. Yu Peng, deputy director of the Intellectual Property Professional Committee of the Shandong Bar Association, believes that ripping online courses without legal authorization should be determined as infringing as long as it is used for commercial purposes. If the number of infringements constitutes a criminal offense, the right holder may report the case to the local public security organ in accordance with the law. Cui Lihong, director of the Shandong Province Copyright Teaching and Research Base, suggested that those who do not constitute a criminal offense in quantity may report to the local IP enforcement department.
He Chen said that for Internet platforms that provide storage, search, and link services for pirated online course resources, pressure should be exerted through legal responsibilities to guide them to have the power to actively cooperate with copyright owners to take measures such as deleting information and disconnecting links.
Ape Counseling said that most current online platforms will require copyright owners to submit copyright registration certificates as the only way to prove the ownership of rights. However, based on the product characteristics of online education institutions, this requirement will greatly increase business costs and has no legal basis. It is suggested that relevant online platforms can adopt a more comprehensive and realistic method of proof of ownership, such as the official website copyright statement, to better cooperate with the protection of copyright owners' legal rights.