Zhongxin Finance, April 1 (Reporter Song Yusheng) "I am the author Zu Zhan. I received a notice from a lawyer a few days ago that I sued Jiuyuexi's "Xiao Nanfeng" for infringing my copyright of "Embrace You Over Time". The case has been officially filed. It has been five full years since I first received a private message from reader Aite and a private message that "Hugging You Across Time" was suspected of being plagiarized by "Little South Wind". "
On March 28, internet writer Zu Zhan announced on Weibo that he was suing internet writer Jiu Yuexi.
This is the first aid case since the establishment of the Anti-Plagiarism Fund.
At the same time, Zhuang Yu, the writer who promoted the creation of the fund, publicly stated that there are still difficulties in defending the rights.
Where is the difficulty in this case?
How is the law defined?
Have there been similar cases in the past?
Screenshot of filing information.
Screenshot of Zu Zhan's Weibo
"an act in Chinese translation"
The difficulty of safeguarding rights is actually evident from the content recently disclosed by the Anti-Plagiarism Fund.
On the evening of the 28th, the Anti-Plagiarism Fund released some volunteers' feedback on the reading and comparison of the two works "Embrace You Across Time" and "Xiao Nanfeng" through its Weibo.
However, these public contents do not present the textual expressions that are completely repeated between the two works.
The reading experience of some volunteers is only the "similarity in plot" of the novel.
One of the anti-plagiarism fund volunteers wrote, "I feel like this is a kind of copywriting, a kind of behavior in Chinese translation..."
Part of the volunteer feedback published on the Anti-Plagiarism Fund Weibo.
Weibo screenshot
Zhao Hu, the attorney representing Zu Zhanfang in this case, confirmed to reporters that the infringement issue involved in this case is not "direct copying", but a "copy-washing and stalking-type infringement".
The so-called "merging stalks" here refers to the act of bringing together ideas from all parties in the process of online literature creation, and borrowing the intellectual achievements of others in terms of character setting and story routines in the works.
Zhao Hu believes that because of this, Zu Zhan's case is "a certain degree of difficulty" compared with general infringement cases.
Zu Zhan's book cover of "Embracing You Across Time".
"Protection of expression, not of thought"
In addition, Zhao Hu judged that the focus of the dispute between the plaintiff and the defendant in this case should focus on "the issue of the boundary between expression and thought".
In the legal field, the Copyright Law stipulates the "idea and expression dichotomy" in copyright, that is, the law only protects expression, not ideas.
Zhao Hu believes that "written words belong to expression, and thoughts and feelings that you want to express belong to thoughts; specific plots belong to expressions, and general outlines belong to thoughts."
But in specific cases, what is a legally protected expression and what is an unprotected thought?
In this regard, Zhao Hu admitted that it is difficult for the law to draw a clear line between expression and thought, and it can only be analyzed in a specific case.
"The party accused of infringing tends to say that he just borrowed some ideas but did not use expressions; but the plaintiff would argue that the alleged infringing part is the expression."
He said that in this case, it depends on the outcome of the court hearing and judgment.
The book cover of Jiuyuexi's "Little South Wind".
Is there a case to refer to?
However, these problems are not entirely new.
In Zhao Hu's view, Qiong Yao v. Yu Zheng's infringement case many years ago is a typical case in this regard.
Qiong Yao v. Yu Zheng was sentenced at the second instance in late 2015.
The Beijing Higher People's Court rejected the appeals of the defendants, upheld the original judgment of the first instance, and determined that Yu Zheng's infringement was established.
According to the report, the court of first instance in this case held that, in the literary works used for comparison, the relationship between the characters and the plot based on the specific characters are highly similar, and it can be determined that the copyright infringement is established.
The case of Qiong Yao v. Yu Zheng was also listed by the Supreme People's Court as one of the top ten intellectual property cases in Chinese courts in 2015.
At that time, the Supreme People's Court stated that the significance of this case is that the judgment method and criteria for "substantially similar" literary works have been fully explained, and how the plot selection, structural arrangement, plot advancement design, etc. The distinction between "thought" and "expression" is instructive.
The reporter also tried to contact Jiuyuexi through social media accounts recently, but no response was received as of press time.
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