What happened before more than 70 film and television organizations and more than 500 artists signed their signatures?

  A month ago, Xinhua News Agency’s "Xinhua Viewpoint" column broadcast an investigation report "Over 90% of the original authors of short videos have been infringed: After five minutes of watching a movie, the content is similar to each other "moving"...", three days later, China TV Arts 15 industry organizations such as the Exchange Association and Beijing Film Association, together with 58 film and television companies, and online video platforms, jointly issued a statement requesting institutions such as short video platforms to take measures to stop the cutting, removal and other infringements of film and television works.

  Here, more than 500 artists joined the ranks of signature co-signatures, requiring the short video platform to effectively protect the copyright of related film and television works.

A few days ago, the National Copyright Administration and the National Film Administration also stated that they would crack down on short video infringement and piracy according to law...

  Why do more than 70 film and television organizations and more than 500 artists co-sign their signatures?

What is the reason for such a big battle?

The report "exploded" a big battle: only because the world has suffered "pirates" for a long time

  As an investigative reporter, how much social impact an investigative report can bring is an event of uncertainty.

This time the report "exploded" such a big battle, which we did not expect.

Many friends asked about the origin of the topic out of curiosity.

  This is a report from "I invite you to watch a movie".

Last October, "King Kong River" began to be shown in theaters.

On the weekend, a friend called and said that he would invite reporters to watch "King Kong River".

  As soon as I heard that there were hot movies to watch, the reporter got interested, "When? Where to go?" "I posted it on your mobile phone, hahahaha..."

  Turning on the phone, a short video came into view, and the picture of Wu Jing and Zhang Yi teasing each other before the war was ready to come out.

In the corner of this short video, the account of a short video platform came into view.

  "How about? It's okay? Next time it's your turn to invite me to watch it!" The friend then sent a voice, with a "joy of victory" of "you were tricked by me" in his tone.

  "Is there any infringement of this kind of short video?" The reporter was full of doubts and consulted with relatives and friends around him. Most people have long been "accustomed to such short videos", and many people think that reporters are "rare and weird." "——"Don't mess around. Looking back at your supervision, we can't see it anymore."

  However, in December last year, the 12426 Copyright Monitoring Center released the "2020 China Online Short Video Copyright Monitoring Report". The report pointed out that short videos are becoming a high incidence of Internet intellectual property infringement.

After the report was released, netizens on platforms such as Weibo, WeChat Official Account and Douyin began to complain about the phenomenon of "short video infringement" on a large scale.

  Some original short videos "Big V" also complained to reporters.

"He misappropriated my creativity and liked more than me." Many original short videos "Big V" rushed to tell reporters about their experiences when they learned that we were conducting related investigations.

  An original short video "Big V" with more than tens of millions of fans said that in order to protect his legal rights and interests, he used his own account to speak out, but he was unnecessarily accused by netizens. "Because I have more fans, the infringing party Fans of ran over and said that I'm'using the big to bully the small' and'using traffic to engage in cyber bullying'."

  All of the above have strengthened our determination to bite this clue and do a good job of reporting.

Behind the infringement: because "traffic can be'realized'"

  Xixi under the heavens is only for the benefit, and the logic behind "piracy" is self-evident.

Whether the short video field is profitable through infringement has naturally become the subject of our key investigation.

  Our investigation found that on a short video platform, some "daring" anchors directly broadcast movies or TV series and other film and television works in the live broadcast room, but in fact, these works are not completely "free" when they are broadcast. Under the guise of "receiving benefits" to induce users to click on the link to promote the game, they can often earn a lot of promotion fees.

  There are also anchors who earn "tuition fees" by playing film and television works.

On another short video platform, some anchors packaged and sold tutorials on "how to move film and television works" under the banner of "receiving apprentices", and "started a class" to instruct others to use technical means to circumvent the platform's censorship.

This type of author not only does not belong to the normal "secondary creation", but is also suspected of using other people's works to "block the stream for profit."

  "With 1 million fans and an average playback volume of about 500,000, the price of promotional videos within 20 seconds is about 10,000 yuan, no bargaining."

  A short video promotion service provider told reporters that moving the edited film and television works is the fastest and most convenient way to "accumulate fans". "If you have more fans, you will have more traffic; if you have more traffic, come to your advertisers to promote cooperation. There are more advertisers; your ability to'monetize' will be stronger when there are more advertisers."

  "In a short period of time, there is another way to'monetize' to'increasing fans', which is to be a'number-making party' or a'number-selling party'. Anyway, it is to move other people's videos. Fans come quickly and money comes quickly.

  Among the industry “insiders” revealed to reporters by industry insiders, many cases have played a role of “negative demonstration”. This is why more and more short video authors are unwilling to spend time on making originals, but are concerned about simple handling or cutting. The reason for the rush for editing.

It is often difficult for copyright owners to catch current infringements

  In order to clarify the "handling logic" of the authors of infringing short videos, we have asked many people in the industry who are engaged in the self-media industry to understand the situation.

  "For example, "Friends", if you change the title of the play to "The Story of Six People", it will be impossible for you to search for "Friends" in the search bar."

  During the investigation, the reporter found that if you want to "locate" the infringing author through the search bar provided by the short video platform, it is generally difficult to find out according to the picture.

  An industry insider pointed out the "mystery" for reporters.

With the support of the "Thousands of People and Thousand Faces" algorithm, the search results presented by the platform to different users are different. This difference is not only reflected in the ranking of search results, but also in the presentation of video content.

  With the deepening of the investigation, we have received more and more "revelations", and the legal boundary issues we face have become more and more prominent.

  In addition to ordinary film and television works, our investigation found that other original content on the short video platform also has a large number of infringements.

  Some original short video authors have reported to us that the plagiarism of original short videos is similar to the "washing" of public account articles. The copycats embezzled the video shooting script, but only changed the person who appeared on the screen and the scene where they appeared on the screen.

Due to differences in the determination of the originality of short videos in current judicial practice, it has objectively increased the difficulty of defending the rights of original short video authors.

  In fact, some of the short videos we made before have been infringed. For example, the title and title tags were removed without any signature or source.

At present, the WeChat platform can label original articles as “original”, and there is also a mechanism for identifying and penalizing manuscript washing; however, due to technical reasons, the short video platform currently lacks such a mechanism.

Change is slowly happening

  After the report was broadcast on April 6, the first report feedback we received came from relatives and friends around us. Some people believed that this report could correct the unhealthy trends in the traffic-centric industry, and some people were discussing short video platforms. Where is the boundary of "second creation", some people don't expect much of the effect that the report can achieve.

  Change is slowly taking place.

On the short video platform, some videos of the so-called "handling tutorial" have been quietly deleted; a film and television blogger with more than 20 million fans has marked "This video has been authorized to use since April 28th. The words "movie footage" spontaneously draw a line from infringement; some legal bloggers have begun to popularize "what should be done after short video is infringed", "self-media content is stolen, who can compensate for it" and how to resolve it. Contents such as the "Second Creation" Infringement Storm" have meticulously popularized the methods and procedures of rights protection.

  After this copyright dispute, we are also looking forward to the rapid introduction of reasonable solutions, such as establishing a copyright trading platform, buying part of the copyright on the Internet platform, etc., so that the copyright holder, the platform, and the user will form a standardized "Authorization" mechanism.

Over time, more benign interactions can be formed and a real win-win situation can be achieved.

  Planning: Wang Yu, Chen Yuming

  Reporters: Yan Zhihong, Xiong Qi