【Explanation】Because of reading the letter written by Sanmao's father to Sanmao on the program, the program "Seeing Words Like Noodles" was sued by Sanmao's survivors for violating the copyright of the written works. On June 5, 2020, the Beijing Internet Court publicly pronounced the verdict in the first instance and found that the program "See the Words as Faces" infringed on the right to modify, copy, perform and the information network transmission rights of the letters involved.

　　[Commentary] "Let's See Words Like a Face" is a program that invites the star guest to read a letter in the form of a letter, lead the audience into the scene of the letter era, and feel the writing of the author's life story. On the show, guests once recited a letter from the famous author San Mao's father Chen Siqing to San Mao "Past·Now·Future", but the producer of the show was brought to court by San Mao's survivors.

　　[Explanation] San Mao’s siblings, Chen’s sibling, believe that the use of the program “Seeing Words as Faces” without permission has infringed upon the rights to modify, copy, perform, and disseminate information on the letters involved. The producer of the program stated that the act of reading the correspondence in the case involved was to appropriately quote some of the letters in order to introduce and comment on the correspondence and to explain the relevant topics, which constituted reasonable use. In this regard, the court held that the use of the letters in the program involved in the case exceeded the necessary limit for proper citation and was not a reasonable use.

　　[Same period] Judge Zhang Qian of the Court of Initiation of Beijing Internet Court

　　Appropriate citation refers to the purpose of introducing and commenting on a certain work, or explaining a certain problem, and appropriately cite the work of others in your own work. Inviting professional actors to read the letters aloud is a kind of emotional reading, which is very attractive and appealing to the audience. So no matter from the pre-set of the program or from the actual effect, the reading part of the letters involved in the case is the key part of the program involved. So from this perspective, we think this is not an appropriate reference.

　　【Explanation】According to this, the court sentenced in the first instance: the three defendants published a statement in a prominent position in the China Press, Publication, Radio and Television News within ten days from the date of the judgment's entry into force to eliminate the impact and compensate the three plaintiffs for economic losses and reasonable expenses totaling RMB 62,636.

　　Wen Mengxin reports from Beijing

Editor in charge: [Ji Xiang]