Research On Indirect Infringement Of Copyright Of Video Sharing Website In China

The development of science and technology not only facilitates the dissemination of information,but also brings new challenges to China’s current laws.The emergence of video sharing website provides people with a new way of entertainment,and users can freely upload works to the website for others to watch and download.A large number of users and massive video content lead to the inevitable emergence of content that infringes on other people’s copyright on video sharing website.In recent years,video sharing website has frequently fallen into the whirlpool of copyright disputes.The right holders have sued users for infringing their right of information network transmission by uploading videos to the website,and demanded the website to assume tort liability.As a space for storing information,video sharing websites do not directly infringe on "proprietary rights".How to define the tort behavior and liability of websites has aroused extensive discussion in the theoretical circle.At present,the general view is that video sharing websites,as network service providers,should bear indirect tort liability when they are at fault.In order to balance the distribution of responsibility between video sharing websites,website users and copyright owners.There is no direct statement about "indirect infringement of copyright" in China’s current legal provisions.Inspiring infringement,helping infringement and knowing the facts of infringement but not acting negatively are the manifestations of indirect infringement.As one of the basic rules for dealing with internet infringement cases,the safe harbor rules is reflected in the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China,the Regulations on the Protection of Information Network Dissemination Right and the corresponding judicial interpretation.However,the relevant provisions of notice-take down in the safe harbor rules are still imperfect.It is embodied in the following aspects:(1)the lack of definition of the validity of notification;(2)the lack of time limit for Internet service providers to transmit notice "timely" and take necessary measures "timely";(3)notice as a right is at risk of being abused,and the lack of regulation design for the abuse of the right of notice.In addition,at the initial stage of the emergence of the video sharing websites,the website lacked the motivation to authenticate users’ real names,and the Network Security Law of the People’s Republic of China in 2017 stipulated the network real name system.However,in judicial cases,we can find that video sharing websites do not implement this regulation well,and do not fully obtain the real identity information of users,which leads to their own adverse consequences.At the same time,due to the existence of the safe harbor rules,the duty of care of video sharing website is relatively low,and video sharing websites are idle in taking technical measures to pre-control the infringing videos uploaded by users.In the current situation of rapid market development and increasingly mature technology,it is necessary to further improve the duty of care of video sharing websites.After investigating the relevant regulations on indirect infringement of copyright for internet service providers outside the territory,this paper draws lessons from the provisions of the safe harbor rules of the United States,in order to arouse the platform’s attention to repeated torts and the application of filtering technology.Then,with reference to Germany,which belongs to the civil law system,the "security obligation" can be applied to the network field,so as to improve the duty of care of video sharing websites.On the basis of reference to Japan’s seven-day time limit for counter-notice and combining with China’s national conditions,this paper puts forward a limited interpretation of "promptly" in the notice-take down rule.To be specific,first of all,a flexible clause sufficient for reasonable positioning standard should be added in terms of the "validity" of the notice to empower the judge with discretion,so as to avoid the occurrence of different judgments in similar cases again.Second,limit the time to take action after receiving a notice to 48 hours,making the notice-take down rule more efficient.Thirdly,it is suggested that the right holder should consider whether there is a fair use situation,consider the subjective state of the sender of the notice when punishing the wrong notice,and add the notice guarantee rule to reduce the abuse of the notice right.Finally,video sharing websites should be urged to implement the requirements of user real-name system and adopt copyright content filtering measures to improve their duty of care.It is expected that the above measures will provide solutions to the current copyright disputes of video sharing websites and promote the healthy development of copyright protection in the network environment.