Two training institutions in Yichang, Hubei Province were sentenced to copyright infringement and compensation of 500000 yuan for plagiarizing the training instructions prepared by others
2023-02-23
Recently, the Intermediate People's Court of Yichang City, Hubei Province, heard two cases of copyright disputes in vocational training institutions, and ordered a training school and a vocational training company in Yichang to stop the infringement and compensate an educational company in Shandong for a total of 500000 yuan of economic losses. Since 2015, an educational company in Shandong Province has successively compiled guidance books for the National Grid campus recruitment exam, such as "1000 questions must be done before the circuit principle exam" and "1200 questions must be done before the power system analysis exam". In 2020, an education company in Shandong found that the content of the two guidance books sold by a training school in Yichang and a vocational training company in Yichang on their WeChat official account for the campus recruitment examination of the State Grid was largely similar to the content of the books they wrote in terms of format design, question type selection, topic arrangement, value setting, etc., so it filed a lawsuit with Yichang Intermediate People's Court to request a decree to stop the infringement and compensate for economic losses. A training school in Yichang and a vocational training company in Yichang argued that the above-mentioned training and guidance book prepared by an educational company in Shandong Province was not published by the publishing house, and was not original, not a work in the sense of copyright, and should not be protected by law. The actions of the two defendants did not constitute copyright infringement. After the hearing, Yichang Intermediate People's Court believed that the training books such as "Must Do 1000 Questions Before the Circuit Principle Test" compiled by an educational company in Shandong Province were not only the collection and compilation of the test questions, but also the creative work in the selection, selection, design and approval of the test materials, and the test questions designed or selected were corresponding to the relevant circuit theory, or based on the relevant circuit principle, so the selection of the test questions in the book The contents of design and arrangement are original and belong to works in the sense of copyright. The copyright of a written work is automatically obtained by the creator from the date of completion of the creation of the work. After comparison, it was found that a training school in Yichang and a vocational training company in Yichang and an educational company in Shandong had published a lot of similar works, which had formed substantial similarities. Therefore, it was found that the defendant, a training school in Yichang and a vocational training company in Yichang, infringed the copyright of the plaintiff, an educational company in Shandong. Accordingly, Yichang Intermediate Court made the aforementioned judgment. The two cases were decided by the Hubei Provincial Higher People's Court of second instance, and both rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment. ■ The judge's statement ■ The focus of the public's attention is whether the training and guidance books such as the examination question set prepared by the training institution itself are original, belong to the works in the sense of copyright law, and whether the training and guidance books not published by the publishing house are protected by copyright law. Article 2, paragraph 1, of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that works of Chinese citizens, legal persons or organizations without legal personality, whether published or not, enjoy copyright in accordance with this Law. Article 3 stipulates that the term "works" as used in this Law refers to intellectual achievements that are original and can be expressed in a certain form in the fields of literature, art and science. Article 6 of the Regulations for the Implementation of the Copyright Law stipulates that copyright shall arise from the date of completion of the creation of the work. Copyright acquisition is a kind of original acquisition. The creator automatically obtains the copyright of the work from the time the work is completed. Therefore, whether the works involved in the case are published or not does not affect the creator's acquisition of the copyright of the works involved in the case. The judgment of originality of the work involved in the case should be combined with the work
Edit:Ying Ying Responsible editor:Jia Jia
Source:rmfyb.chinacourt.org
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