Chinanews client, Beijing, March 18 (Reporter Song Yusheng and Shan Lu) "I just want to break a fortune, why is it so difficult?" This is the movie "The Richest Man in Xihong City" released in 2018, the protagonist Wang Duo A line of fish.
This film, which depicts the story of a small person getting rich overnight, won 2.5 billion in box office that year and ranked fourth in the total box office list of Chinese movies in 2018.
But just a year later, in 2019, screenwriter Wang Qian sued the producer of the movie "The Richest Man in Xihong City" to the court on the grounds of copyright infringement.
On March 18, the second instance of the case was opened in Beijing Intellectual Property Court.
"The Richest Man in Xihong City" poster
Alleged film infringement, but no evidence
At the first instance of the case, Wang Qian believed that the relationship between the main characters and the storyline of the movie "The Richest Man in Xihong City" and the script "The Heir of the Property "Wealthy" created between July and September 2015 There are a lot of similarities or similarities. The movie involved plagiarized the core original plot of the script involved, and the six defendants constituted copyright infringement.
Wang Qian requested the court to order the six defendants to bear tort liability such as cessation of infringement, apology, and compensation for reasonable expenses.
However, the court of first instance found that the copyright infringement claimed by Wang Qian was not established and rejected all of his claims.
Wang Qian refused to accept and appealed to the Beijing Intellectual Property Court.
The scene of the second instance court.
Photo by Song Yusheng, a reporter from China News Service
On March 18, during the trial of the second instance, Wang Qian stated that she had sent her script to Lin Moubao, one of the appellees, via WeChat.
However, because she has changed terminals such as computers since then, she has not been able to produce evidence related to this.
She also claimed that a friend who participated in the creation of the script "Property Heirs: "Wealthy"" once told the movie "The Richest Man in Xihong City" related party happy twist "to introduce this story in detail."
Wang Qian said that although his script "Property Heirs Are Rich" has not been published publicly, it has also been disseminated on a small scale in order to seek investors.
However, she did not produce strong evidence to support these claims.
The legal source of the movie
So, where did the script for "The Richest Man in Xihong City" come from?
The lawyer representing the appellee stated that "The Richest Man in Xihong City" was based on a legally authorized independent creation and adapted from the film "Brewster's Million Fortune", and its character relationships and core storylines have legal sources of adaptation.
The two films do have obvious similarities.
Public information shows that the protagonist in "Brewster's Million Windfall" is a second-rate baseball player. When he was the most impoverished, his uncle's $300 million inheritance fell from the sky, as long as he spent $30 million in a month. Can be inherited.
"Brewster's Million Fortune" poster.
The story of "The Richest Man in Xihong City" is: Wang Duoyu, the goalkeeper of the Daxiang team of the Xihong City C-level team, was fired by the coach for losing the game. When he was unable to do anything, Wang Duoyu suddenly received an invitation from the mysterious boss Jin I told myself that I was the only heir to the insurance tycoon, Mr. Wang, with an inheritance of tens of billions; to inherit the inheritance, he would need to spend one billion in a month.
The respondent believes that the "Brewster's Million Fortune", which was released in the 1980s, is the "legitimate source" of the story of "The Richest Man in Xihong City".
The appellant denied that the creator of "The Richest Man in Xihong City" had contact with the appellant Wang Qian, so she could not see the script she created.
At the same time, the appellant Wang Qian also denied that he had seen "Brewster's Million Windfall" before writing the script "The Heir of Property "Is Rich".
What does copyright law protect?
Since there is no reliable evidence to prove that the story of "The Richest Man in Xihong City" comes from the script "The Heir of Property "Is Rich", are there any factual similarities between the two?
At the scene of the second instance, the two parties provided evidence to each other.
The plot of "touching porcelain" in "The Richest Man in Xihong City".
Video screenshot
The appellant cited 12 similar plots, including "touching porcelain", "investing" and "pruning the garden".
Taking the "running" plot as an example, the appellant believes that although the plot expressions are not exactly the same, they all choose the popular nationwide fitness running "weight loss" exercise to show people's current consumption views.
However, the appellant believes that "running" is the most common form of fitness, which is a public material, and the appellant has no right to make a claim.
Li Jingjian, the lawyer of the appellant, said in an interview with a reporter from Chinanews.com after the trial that the plot of "running" plays a completely different role in different works. The "running" of the appellant's work is in the first half of the work. A wealthy male protagonist is dragged into the marathon running team, and the "running" in "The Richest Man in Xihong City" is a three-second shot of a song.
The "running" scene of "The Richest Man in Xihong City".
Video screenshot
Therefore, in Li Jingjian's view, the "running" that has caused controversy here is actually the content of the ideological and creative level.
The defendant's lawyer Wang Jun also emphasized in the trial that the copyright law protects expression, not thought.
"Creative points and ideological expressions have been misappropriated and borrowed. This is not a point that the law can protect. What the law can protect is in the details of expression. If we sink the relevant ideas to specific expressions, the two works are not There are substantial similarities."
"No hope" appeal
In fact, after the first trial of this case, Wang Qian has "no hope" for the outcome of the trial.
In an interview with a reporter from Chinanews.com, she said that the reason why she still chose to appeal is "to let everyone know how this happened through the trial process."
She said, “Because I also learned how this happened through the first-instance trial process. I think that getting the truth may be more important than winning the lawsuit in the end.”
Wang Qian also said frankly that as far as she knows, many domestic screenwriters are not quite sure how the current copyright law defines ideas and expressions.
"My previous understanding of the copyright law is this: For example, if I have a work and I have done copyright protection, I think it should be protected by the law, and I can send it to anyone at will. At the same time, they should not treat this work. Infringement, because the law can protect me."
Stills of "The Richest Man in Xihong City".
Video screenshot
But the facts are obviously different from her imagination.
Under the framework of "protecting expression, not protecting ideas," there are still many details that need to be paid attention to by creators.
Wang Qian also talked to reporters about some of the difficulties of protection.
She said that when screenwriters want to promote their own works, they must spread the script within a certain range.
"This process is likely to cause plagiarism, and there is no good solution at this time."
In fact, in the widely discussed topic of infringement of literary works, it is difficult to find a black and white boundary for many issues.
Li Jingjian, the lawyer of the appellee, told reporters after the trial that the line between thought and expression is often not black and white, and it is often necessary to combine specific works and specific cases to determine this line of thought and expression. Where is the line drawn.
Stills of "The Richest Man in Xihong City"
At the end of the second instance, the presiding judge also said that the whole case may be due to different understandings of the law, which led to different views of the two parties.
For practitioners, it is even more necessary to understand relevant laws in order to protect their rights and avoid risks.
The case will be sentenced at an elective date.
(Finish)