THE copyright infringement case where Tencent sued Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok, has recently reached a verdict, Shenzhen Evening News reported.

Tencent sued Douyin for violating copyright law by circulating clips of King of Glory, one of Tencent’s most popular mobile games, on its platform. Douyin was ordered to pay 600,000 yuan (US$92,580) to Tencent as compensation, but Douyin said it has filed an appeal.

During the trial, Tencent claimed that Douyin had allowed and helped its users to incorporate King of Glory into short videos to attract viewers. Tencent sent several notification letters to Douyin asking to delete the videos. According to Tencent, Douyin is liable for copyright infringement after refusing requests to delete the videos.

King of Glory, also known as Honor of Kings, is a multiplayer online battle game developed by Tencent and is one of the top-grossing mobile games in China.

According to Douyin, the Douyin app is a sharing platform of creative short videos. The videos involved in the case were uploaded and released by the users themselves.

Douyin claimed that the platform only provides information storage services and there is no division of labor, cooperation or benefit sharing between the platform and the users involved.

Tencent also accused Douyin of eroding its market share in the game’s livestreams, which constituted unfair competition. Tencent demanded a compensation of 5.2 million yuan.

The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court, which heard the case, stated that there is a direct competitive relationship between the two parties, so accusations of unfair competition cannot be established when the act of copyright infringement has been determined.

In the verdict, the court ruled that Douyin has constituted contributory infringement but not unfair competition. Douyin was ordered to compensate Tencent for economic losses of 500,000 yuan and 100,000 yuan for rights protection expenditure.

In response to the court’s decision, Douyin issued a statement Monday saying that it has filed an appeal against the ruling.  (Zhang Yu)