Warriors players Curry (left) on offense during the game.
As the commercial value of top sports events continues to rise, driven by huge economic interests, online piracy has been repeatedly banned. Recently, the unfair competition dispute case between Tencent and Guangzhou Feirou Network Technology Co., Ltd. was officially pronounced. The court found that Guangzhou Feirou Network Technology Co., Ltd., the operator of the "Renren Sports" website and APP, violated the " Anti-Unfair Competition Law " and ruled that Feirou Company should immediately stop unfair competition and prohibit illegal activities on the "Renren Sports" website and The APP homepage and the NBA China official website homepage issued apology statements for five consecutive days to eliminate the negative impact on the plaintiff, and compensated the plaintiff for economic losses and reasonable expenses of 8.12 million yuan. As the first case involving NBA sports event live broadcast rights, the victory of this case has important social warning and industry demonstration significance for the copyright protection of sports events.
Court: If left unchecked, it will inevitably lead to continued chaos in market competition.
The NBA has a large number of fans around the world and is one of the most commercially valuable leagues. Therefore, the copyright fees for broadcasting games are also very high. In this case, the "Renren Sports" website and APP provided free NBA game live broadcasts in " Tencent Video " in its live broadcast room without authorization, blocked the "Tencent Video" logo, and blocked the plaintiff's placement during the game. advertisment. In other words, Feirou directly stole the core operating resources formed by the plaintiff’s huge investment through illegal means without any cost investment in the live broadcast resources of the game, resulting in the loss of users, traffic and related related content that Tencent Video should have obtained. Loss or reduction of benefits.
Tianjin No. 3 Intermediate People’s Court held that if such behavior is allowed and operators are allowed to arbitrarily use the operating resources accumulated by other operators without paying corresponding costs, it will inevitably lead to chaos in the market competition and operators. and the rights and interests of consumers will eventually be damaged.
The sports industry has suffered from piracy for a long time.
In fact, due to objective factors such as the low technical threshold for piracy, the difficulty in identifying infringements, and the high cost of rights protection for copyright owners, it is extremely difficult to protect the copyright of sports events. The sports industry has been suffering from piracy for a long time.
In order to maintain a safe and healthy development environment for the digital copyright of sports events, cracking down on piracy has become an industry consensus, and related litigation cases are also on the rise year by year.
According to Premier League official news, after a person who used illegal streaming media devices to pirate Premier League broadcasts was sentenced to seven years and four months in prison, Warwick Crown Court recently ruled that the proceeds of his criminal activities should be confiscated and ordered to Compensation of 963,000 pounds within three months, otherwise the sentence will be extended. Premier League officials said they will continue to crack down on content piracy and investigate and prosecute providers of illegal streaming services.
Sports events are also safeguarding their rights.
Not only are copyright owners actively safeguarding their rights, the relevant departments are also increasingly strengthening the judicial protection of copyrights in sports events. Take the Sina Chinese Super League live broadcast program copyright and unfair competition dispute case as an example. The case went through the first instance, second instance and retrial procedures, and finally upheld Tianying Jiuzhou Company to stop broadcasting Sina Company’s authorized Chinese Super League games and compensate for losses of 500,000 yuan. judgment.
is the first domestic sports event program online broadcast copyright dispute case. The core dispute in this case is whether the event program involved constitutes a work created by a method similar to filmmaking. The retrial court combined the legislative purposes of the Copyright Law and used literal interpretation. After conducting in-depth analysis through system interpretation and other methods, it was determined that the event program involved in the case constituted a film-type work protected by the "Copyright Law" in effect at the time, and was not a video product. The accused live broadcast violated Sina's "copyright owner's right" to the event program involved in the case. other rights enjoyed”. The judgment in this case clarified the protection rules for sports events through reasonable interpretation and application of the law. While strengthening the protection of rights, it also provided reference for the trial of similar cases.
At present, with the improvement of the judicial system and the advancement of network combat technology, the copyright protection of sports events is also expected to usher in a new situation.
In June this year, the "Sports Law of the People's Republic of China" was revised and adopted at the 35th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress. Article 52 clearly states that without the permission of sports event organizers and other relevant rights holders, no information such as pictures, audio and video of sports events may be collected or disseminated for profit.
In addition, in the previously revised "Copyright Law", the original "film works and works created by methods similar to filmmaking" were changed to "audiovisual works". The introduction of this more inclusive concept will make it more Conducive to copyright protection of sports events. At the same time, online video platforms such as Tencent Video are also actively using innovative technological means to provide technical support for combating piracy. However, it should be noted that more effective management of the problem of piracy of sports events requires the joint efforts of all sectors of society. The public should also take action to join hands with event alliances, video platforms and other rights parties to resist piracy and jointly create a healthy and healthy sports industry. sustainable development environment.
