Beijing internet court sees first case as platforms Douyin, Huopai fight over content

Beijing’s internet court received its first case on Tuesday involving a dispute over the rights to distribute information through internet networks between short video streaming platforms Douyin and Baidubacked Huopai.

The internet court, set up to handle China’s rising online disputes and running 24 hours a day, opened on Sunday.

Douyin, the plaintiff, claimed Huopai had downloaded a short video clip published on its platform without permission and then uploaded it to the Huopai app and allowed users to download the video.

“The unauthorized distribution has caused massive economic losses to the plaintiff,” the People’s Daily reported, and Douyin, as a result, has demanded 1 million yuan ($145,674.91) to compensate for the losses and 50,000 yuan in litigation expenses.

The case could also offer a juridical example as to whether short web videos can be regarded as “work” as defined in copyright law, where the border of rights among different short video platforms are as well as what the judicial application of blockchain technology is in obtaining and preserving evidence, an employee of the Beijing internet court was quoted as saying in the report.

A total of 586 Chinese firms have registered on the court’s website as users, with 207 online cases filed as of 18:00 on Monday, according to the report. Its website has drawn more than 207,300 visits so far. The court is also China’s second internet court after another was established in Hangzhou, capital of East China’s Zhejiang Province in August.