The novel "The Name of the People" was sued for plagiarism, and the court found that the case was not infringing
Beijing News (Reporter Wang Wei) believes that the novel "The Name of the People" has infringements of plagiarizing and plagiarizing his works. Li Xia, who has worked in the Procuratorate for 22 years, will author Zhou Meisen, the author of "The Name of the People" and Beijing Publishing Group Co., Ltd. Complaint to the court. The reporter learned today (June 2) from the Beijing Intellectual Property Court that the court's final judgment concluded that "The Name of the People" written by Zhou Meisen does not constitute plagiarism and infringement.
First instance never constitutes plagiarism
Li Xia, author of the novel "Defense of Life and Death", said that he had worked in the procuratorate for 22 years and in the court for 3 years, and is currently serving in the judicial administration of Sichuan. Li Xia sued that according to his long-term procuratorial work experience, he began to write the novel "Defense of Life and Death" in June 2008, which was serially published in the "Procuratorate Daily" from September to November 2010, and published by Hainan in November 2010. Press.
In January 2017, the novel "The Name of the People" written by Zhou Meisen was published by Beijing Publishing Group. Li Xiajing’s comparative analysis found that the novel “The Name of the People” copied and plagiarized a large number of plagiarism and plagiarism in its character setting, character relationships, key plots, general plots, scene descriptions, and sentence expressions without signing it. Infringe on the copyrights they enjoy, so file a lawsuit with the court.
Li Xia asked for an order: Beijing Publishing Group immediately stopped the publication and distribution of the infringing works involved; Zhou Meisen, Beijing Publishing Group apologized to him in the "Procuratorate Daily" and the homepage of Sina.com to eliminate the impact; Zhou Meisen compensated his economic loss of 800,000 yuan Beijing Publishing Group compensated its economic loss of 200,000 yuan, and the two jointly shouldered the reasonable expenses they had spent to stop the infringement; Zhou Meisen compensated his spiritual damages 100,000 yuan.
After trial, the court of first instance held that the book "Defense of Life and Death" was published in November 2010, and "The Name of the People" was published in January 2017. Before the completion of the creation of "The Name of the People", the defendant could theoretically be exposed to "Life and Death" "Defend", so the court only discusses whether the two books are substantially similar in expression.
Through the specific comparison, it can be seen that the two novels involved in the case do not constitute substantially the same or similar expressions in the five aspects of the promotion of the clues and the logical arrangement, role setting, character relationship, plot, and specific description advocated by Li Xia. "Does not constitute a plagiarism of "Defense of Life and Death", Li Xia's claim that Zhou Meisen and Beijing Publishing Group infringed their copyrights cannot be established, so the judgment rejected all Li Xia's claims.
The second instance rejected the appeal and upheld the original verdict
After the case was pronounced, Li Xia appealed. In June 2019, the case was heard in the second instance of the Beijing Intellectual Property Court.
During the second trial of the case, Li Xia cited 50 similar plots in two books, and said that "The Name of the People" comprehensively borrowed her novels in terms of story structure, character setting, and text description. She believed that "this is a comprehensive approach. Plagiarism is a manuscript." In response to the plagiarism dispute, the two parties each expounded their own ideas in the court, and described their own reasons.
The Beijing Intellectual Property Court held that the prerequisite for plagiarism was that the infringed work and the original work constituted a substantial similarity. The method adopted by the court in this case is to sort out and classify the content of the evidence of a party who claims to be substantially similar, and to compare and determine it in accordance with the random inspection method approved by the parties.
The court compared and clarified each specific plot and formed a judgment of more than 52,000 words. After sorting out the summary, the court held that the two books involved in the case have obvious differences in the original expression level in the story structure, 18 character settings, 50 specific plots, and 78 text descriptions, which do not constitute a substantial similarity and will not lead to Readers have the same or similar appreciation experience for the two novels. Accordingly, "The Name of the People" does not constitute plagiarism of "Defense of Life and Death". The court dismissed the appeal in the second instance and upheld the original judgment.