Chinese streaming site faces $60m copyright suit
Major sports league claims platform broadcast on-demand games without permission | Site also accused of “abetting and inducing” users to upload videos | Violation of anti-unfair competition cited.
The Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) is demanding damages equating to more than $60 million from the operators of Chinese live streaming platform Bilibili over allegedly broadcasting its games without permission.
The CBA is claiming “subjective and intentional” copyright infringement as well as the violation of China’s anti-unfair competition law over games streamed on demand on Bilibili during the basketball league’s 2019-2020 season.
The development was reported by the South China Morning Post and Beijing-based media company Pandaily, yesterday, July 26.
Shanghai-based Bilibili, which began in 2009 as a niche platform for fans of anime, comics, and games, has grown into a mainstream user-generated video-sharing platform. According to data provided by LatePost in July, the site has boomed in the past few years with almost 80 million daily active users and annual revenue of 19.4 billion yuan ($2.87 billion).
The CBA is demanding 406 million yuan in damages from Bilibili’s operators, Shanghai Magic Electric Information Technology, and Shanghai Kuanyu Digital Technology.
For the 2019-2020 season, the CBA had authorised three other media partners to report on the games: Migu, Tencent and Youku. However, it found that coverage had been made available to the public without permission on Bilibili, and subsequently filed a lawsuit in September 2021 with the Beijing High People’s Court.
Some 281 full-length videos of the games and at least 416 videos of highlights from the season in question were found to be available on the streaming site, according to Pandaily.
The CBA also claims that the defendant encouraged users of “abetting and inducing” its users to upload videos of CBA games.
According to the court filing, Bilibili set up specialised tabs, channels and rankings on its website to host CBA-related content, which is a “direct and deliberate infringement”.
Amid a raft of revisions to IP legislation in China, the country’s copyright law was strengthened in 2021 to raise the compensation in sports copyright cases from the previous upper limit of 500,000 yuan ($74,000) to 5 million yuan ($740,000).
The revisions also hand authorities the power to carry out on-site inspections, request and copy relevant materials and seal up and detain relevant places and goods during investigations.
