Tencent Video Sues Bytedance’s Douyin for Copyright Infringement

Tencent Video is taking Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, to court for allowing its users to upload clips from the internet giant’s hit TV series Crime Crackdown and airing them without authorization. The court accepted the case on Tuesday.

Crime Crackdown, starring Sun Honglei, Zhang Yixing and Liu Yijun, presents a series of murder cases adapted from real events, such as Sun Xiaoguo, Wen Liehong, Huang Hongfa and others.

There have already been about 1.2 billion views of the series on Tencent Video since it was released on August 9. Although other TV channels in Shanghai and Beijing are also broadcasting it, Tencent Video holds exclusive online rights to information distribution about the series.

Tencent Video requires that Douyin deletes, filters and intercepts copyright-infringing videos on the platform and stops seeking illegitimate interests by spreading such videos. Tencent Video has claimed damages of 100 million yuan ($15.4 million).

“Douyin has not taken effective measures to prohibit users from uploading infringing videos. Instead, it actively recommends users to watch them through algorithms and other technologies,” Tencent Video said.

Douyin said on Wednesday it hasn’t been contacted by the court. The Bytedance-owned platform has an agreement with a third party that produced the series together with Tencent, and an official account for the series has been opened, it said.

Since the beginning of this year, the confrontation between long and short videos has become increasingly fierce. In April, 53 film and television companies, five video platforms and 15 film and television industry associations issued a joint statement, announcing that centralized and necessary legal rights protection actions will be launched for unauthorized editing, cutting and dissemination of film and television content on the Internet.

SEE ALSO: WeChat Takes the Lead in Cracking Down on Infringement of Intellectual Property of Short Videos

At the 9th China Network Audiovisual Conference Industry Summit this year, the heads of various long video companies such as Youku and Tencent Video collectively denounced the harm brought by short video infringement to the development of the long video industry.