On The Determination Of Indirect Infringement Liability Of Short Video Platforms In Copyright Disputes

With the innovation of information technology,China’s short video platform occupies a place in the Internet with its strong influence,which leads to the occurrence of indirect tort liability dispute cases of short video platform.Due to the relative lag of China’s copyright legislation and improper blind transplantation,there are many problems in judicial practice to determine the indirect tort liability of short video platforms in copyright disputes.By clarifying the definition of indirect tort liability of short video platform copyright,this paper explores and analyzes the problems existing in judicial practice of the determination of indirect tort liability of short video platform,and puts forward suggestions to improve the indirect tort liability of short video platform in copyright disputes.Based on the legal positioning of Internet service providers,this paper firstly studies the indirect infringement behavior and tort liability of short video platform.The indirect copyright infringement liability of short video platform includes both the copyright infringement liability caused by aiding the infringement and the copyright infringement liability caused by abetting and inducing acts.It is reasonable in theory and reality for short video platform to bear indirect tort liability of copyright,but also has certain particularity.Through sorting out the judgment documents,this paper summarizes the problems existing in the process of determining that the short video platform undertakes the indirect tort liability of copyright at present,especially the indirect tort liability that helps the infringement occurs in practice.The thesis argues that there are the following problems in the determination of indirect tort liability of short video platform in judicial practice: first,the concealment of short video platform in cyberspace and the increasingly unbalanced obligations and rights lead to the rigid application of fault liability principle by the court,and the burden of proof of the right holder is increasingly heavy;Second,the unclear positioning of duty of care on subjective fault and the realistic background of information flow business model based on short video platform lead to disputes on fault identification of duty of care on short video platform in practice.Third,different understanding of the applicable nature of the "safe harbor" rule leads to different judgment logic on how the platform applies the principle of exemption,causing confusion in the application of the tort exemption rule to a certain extent;Fourth,the court’s identification of legal compensation factors is not clear and the reasoning is insufficient,leading to the dispute phenomenon of "the same case,different judgments" in the determination of legal compensation for indirect tort liability of short video platform copyright.Through a detailed analysis of the reasons for the above problems,this paper further explores and puts forward suggestions to improve the determination of indirect tort liability on short video platforms.First of all,it is more appropriate to apply the fault liability principle rather than the no-fault liability principle for short video platforms.At the same time,due to the weak position of copyright owners compared with the platform and the limited ability of proof,the fault principle should be applied as the basis,and the presumption of fault principle should be applied as the supplement under certain circumstances.Secondly,keywords of text description should be defined as the standard for identifying fault of duty of care of popular short videos,and algorithm recommendation behavior should be added as the standard for identifying fault of high duty of care of short video platforms.Furthermore,for how to apply the safe harbor rule,we should return to the judgment logic of "imputation clause" in the theory of tort law in China,and apply the safe harbor rule premised on reasonable duty of care,that is,only after the duty of care is fulfilled,we can "avoid the wind" and exempt from liability.Finally,in terms of legal compensation,it should be fully considered from the perspective of the works,the defendant’s short video platform and the plaintiff’s right holder in order to establish a quantitative mechanism of legal compensation to complete the identification path of legal compensation for tort liability of short video platform.