Basic facts
Shanghai Yiyou Information Technology Co., Ltd., the defendant in this case, is the operator of www. Earsgo.com which is a tourism information website providing voice guide, information on scenic spots and other services to tourists and travel agencies. The columns of the website include information of domestic scenic spots, foreign scenic spots, scenic spot categories, travelling routes and other. Zhou Weihai, the plaintiff and the copyright owner of 37 photography works of scenic spots in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, found these 37 works on www. Earsgo.com on March 18, 2014, so he filed an lawsuit against Shanghai Yiyou Information Technology Co., Ltd. for infringing his copyright. Shanghai Yiyou Information Technology Co., Ltd. argued that the company as a web service provider only offered an information storage space, and the pictures in the site were all uploaded by its members. Moreover, the site clearly prompted users in its User Agreement on the site and upload pages that they should warrant that no uploaded contents would infringe others’ copyrights, hence the it had no fault and should not assume liability for infringement.
Results of judgment
The People’s Court of Putuo District after the first trial viewed that the defendant used 37 works in disputes owned by the plaintiff on www. Earsgo.com it operated without permission of the owner, and such act was infringement. Even though the defendant was only the web service provider of information storage space, the practice still did not conform to the exceptions for web service providers specified by laws and should assume liability for infringement. The court made a judgment that the defendant should extend a formal apology to the plaintiff and compensate economic loss and reasonable expense totaling RMB 40,000. The defendant did not accept the ruling and filed an appeal. After the second trial, Shanghai Intellectual Property Court rejected the appeal and affirmed judgment in the first trial because the court held that the defendant’s website used pictures involved in the first trial for website introduction and scenic spots display, it was not a service provider of information storage space
Typical significance
This case was about the examination and recognition of web service provider and web content provider. The comprehensive examination and judgment should be done to the website business, website content arrangement, website promotional information, self-introduction information and profit model and others. Service provider of information storage space generally takes the offering of information storage space service as the main business of the website while the site is a public platform for network users to upload, browse and download. The main business of www.Earsgo.com in this case is to provide voice guide service, the pictures in dispute plays a role of promoting and displaying relevant scenic spots on the website and becomes a part of introduction of scenic spots provided. Even though these pictures were uploaded by network users, the site still cannot be identified as service provider of information storage space. The judgment of this case provided some thoughts for examining and recognizing the information storage space service provider and information content provider.
