The website provides a video platform "sharing VIP" service sued
"Shared members" hidden ash production chain involved in unfair competition
Through the "sharing" VIP account, you can watch the exclusive video of the video website VIP without paying?
Recently, due to the belief that Mimao Video used "Shared VIP" to expand platform traffic and popularity, destroying the membership management system of Youku platform, reducing transaction opportunities and economic benefits, Youku sued Mimao Video on the grounds of unfair competition disputes. The People's Court of Haidian District, Beijing, claimed 1.9 million yuan.
The Haidian Court reported that the Youku investigation found that the "sharing" method of the Mimao Video APP is: users upload VIP member accounts of major video platforms or complete other limited tasks to obtain platform virtual currency, which can be exchanged for Youku VIP rights cards.
Users can watch Youku VIP film sources in the APP, that is, when the user orders the movie content of Youku members in the APP, the platform will automatically bind the user to log in to another Youku VIP member account for online video playback.
A reporter from "Workers Daily" saw on a website that "shared" VIP accounts that a large number of "free member accounts" of video platforms such as Youku and iQiyi were released every day, and claimed that "all accounts on this site are from netizens." Enthusiastically sharing, for the purpose of letting everyone experience the membership privileges for free, and not for profit."
However, when reporters tried some of these accounts, they all failed due to "unstable use by multiple users".
The website guides users into its "self-delivery platform" in a prominent position to purchase exclusive accounts. Most of the accounts are split into short-term members such as 3 days and 7 days. The price is also cheaper than the original platform monthly payment, quarterly payment, and annual payment A lot.
For example, the 7-day activation code for Youku provided by this website is only 5.9 yuan, and the 3-day activation code for QQ Music Green Diamond members is only 2.5 yuan.
When Youku sued Mimao Video, it stated that the main content of Youku VIP membership service is a service where users can watch member video content for free after paying for membership. Youku has paid a huge amount of copyright license fees and operating costs for this.
Youku believes that the "Shared VIP" service of Mimao Video allows users to directly watch the film and television content in the member area of the Youku platform without paying any consideration to Youku and without using the Youku platform.
This practice severely damaged Youku's legitimate business rights and competitive interests, disrupted the normal market competition order of the industry, and constituted unfair competition.
The reporter learned that there have been cases in disputes involving unfair competition on the Internet for "sharing VIPs".
In August last year, the Haidian Court concluded the first case of a VIP account on a time-sharing video website in China.
After the trial, the Haidian Court held that the “play now” app’s time-sharing lease of iQiyi’s VIP account harmed iQiyi’s legal rights and constitutes unfair competition, and ruled that the platform should compensate iQiyi’s economic losses and reasonable The total expenditure is 3 million yuan.
Our reporter Yu Lingge