What role can the blockchain technology, which is at the forefront, play in intellectual property litigation? In a copyright dispute just heard by the Hangzhou Internet Court, blockchain technology played the role of a "witness". This case has also become the first case in which the Hangzhou Internet Court determined that blockchain electronic deposits are legally valid.
On June 28, the Hangzhou Internet Court made the first instance against Hangzhou Huatai Yimedia Culture Media Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Huatai Yimedia Company) sued Shenzhen Daotong Technology Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Daotong Technology Company) for infringement of information network dissemination rights. In the judgment, Dao Tong Technology Company was ordered to compensate Huatai Yi Media Company for economic losses.
In this case, Huatai Yi Media collected evidence on the infringing webpage of Daotong Technology Company through a third-party certification platform, and used the blockchain to store electronic data to prove the integrity and non-tampering of the electronic data. During the trial, the Hangzhou Internet Court confirmed for the first time the legal validity of electronic data deposited with blockchain technology, and clarified the review and judgment method for blockchain electronic deposits. This is important for the court to promote the use of blockchain electronic deposits in the future. The certificate has certain reference and reference significance.
Blockchain becomes a key "witness"
This case is a copyright infringement dispute. The copyright owner, Metro Express News, exclusively authorized Huatai Yimedia Company to carry out intellectual property rights protection against its works. Huatai One Media Company found that Daotong Technology Company had reprinted text and photographic works without authorization, which was suspected of infringing on its information network dissemination rights, and sued it to the Hangzhou Internet Court, requesting the court to order Daotong Technology Company to compensate for economic losses, etc. .
The difference between this case and ordinary copyright infringement disputes is that Huatai Yimedia Company used a third-party certification platform to automatically crawl the infringing webpage and identify the source code of the infringing page, and compressed the above two contents and call logs. The calculated hash value is uploaded to the Factom blockchain and Bitcoin blockchain. This way of using blockchain technology as electronic data storage and ensuring the integrity of data is a new integration of Internet technology and electronic data storage, which provides more possibilities for rights holders to protect their rights and reflects the development of electronic evidence. new trend.
The Hangzhou Internet Court believes that the use of blockchain and other technical means for fixed electronic data should be carried out in an open and neutral manner for case analysis and determination. It should not be excluded or improved because blockchain and other technologies are new and complex technical means. The determination standard should not be lowered because the technology is difficult to tamper with and delete, and the evidence validity should be comprehensively judged according to the relevant laws and regulations of electronic data.
"The court combines the technical principles of blockchain technology for data storage, based on the legal standards of electronic evidence review, to review the effectiveness of blockchain electronic deposits." According to the law enforcement officer of the case, the court is specific to the case. The Court believes that using a highly reliable automatic crawling program to perform web page screenshots and source code identification can ensure the authenticity of the electronic data; the blockchain technology that meets relevant standards is used to deposit and fix the above electronic data to ensure the electronic data Reliability; Under the premise of confirming that the hash value is consistent with other evidence and can be mutually confirmed, this kind of electronic data can be used as the basis for the determination of infringement in this case.
Based on this, the Hangzhou Internet Court determined that the blockchain electronic evidence submitted by Huatai Yimedia Company was legally valid and that Daotong Technology Company was established for infringement and should compensate the plaintiff for economic losses of 4,000 yuan.
New cases are positive
In this case, the blockchain electronic deposit certificate played the role of a key "witness". Then, what is the principle of the blockchain electronic deposit certificate, and what positive significance does the case have for the application of the blockchain electronic deposit certificate?
Zhang Yanlai, a member of the Policy and Law Committee of the China Electronic Commerce Association and director of the Zhejiang Kenting Law Firm, introduced in an interview with a reporter from China Intellectual Property News: “Blockchain electronic deposit is to store evidence on the blockchain. Specifically, it is A piece of evidence information is stored on multiple nodes at the same time. Unless the information on more than half or all nodes is modified, it is difficult to be tampered with. Therefore, this kind of evidence storage method has a better proof effect."
"Traditional evidence fixation mainly relies on notarization, but the response time is long, the cost of preserving evidence is high, and the application scenarios are difficult to meet the dynamic, instant and big data needs of electronic data storage. The blockchain electronic storage business has a simple operation mode and relatively low cost. Low data reliability and high data reliability. Right holders can use the blockchain electronic deposit platform for instant evidence preservation when infringement occurs.†Wang Limei, Electronic Evidence Research Center, China University of Political Science and Law, said in an interview with our reporter.
Regarding the impact of the judgment in this case, Zhang Yanlai believes that the case heard by the Hangzhou Internet Court is of great significance to the application of blockchain electronic evidence in future judicial practice. First of all, the judgment affirmed the legal effect of blockchain electronic deposits, and made the right holders realize that as a new type of deposit method, blockchain electronic deposits can be recognized by the court; The review and judgment method of electronic deposits is elaborated, which provides an important reference for blockchain technology research and development institutions to continuously improve their products, and for the right holders to make better use of blockchain technology for deposits.
In Wang Limei's view, the judgment in this case has positive significance for the development of the electronic depository industry. "The judgment of this case will help establish a set of electronic deposit standards, promote the development of the industry itself, and form a low-cost, high-efficiency electronic evidence preservation method." She said.
New technology still needs to be improved
The reporter learned during the interview that the advantage of blockchain electronic depository is decentralization. When notarizing, right holders do not need to rely solely on a centralized authority such as the notary office. This method of depositing evidence is not limited by time and region, and the cost is low. Therefore, after its rise, it has shown a strong development trend in the field of intellectual property rights.
"At present, in the field of intellectual property, blockchain technology is mainly used in three aspects. One is proof of ownership. For example, a composer creates a piece of music. The traditional method is to register the copyright of the work and obtain the copyright registration certificate. The use of blockchain technology can directly publish works on the blockchain to prove that the author has the copyright to the work; the second is to deposit evidence against infringements, for example, if the above-mentioned work is unauthorized and is posted on the website by others Dissemination, you can directly save the pages of the infringing website through blockchain technology as evidence for subsequent rights protection; the third is intellectual property transactions, for example, copyright works can be directly traded through the blockchain platform." Zhang Yanlai reports to this newspaper Introduction.
Although blockchain technology is widely used in the field of intellectual property rights, in Zhang Yanlai's view, blockchain electronic deposits still face many difficulties in the actual application process, such as unclear explanations of technical principles. At present, many blockchain electronic deposit products have only a few sentences. How to improve the effectiveness of evidence at the technical level has not been introduced in detail, which makes it impossible for users to elaborate their evidence deposit principles to the judge when defending their rights. In addition, the user experience of blockchain electronic deposit products needs to be improved. Some products cannot verify the content of deposit certificates, cannot automatically save infringement information, and lack system logs.
"In the future, if blockchain electronic deposit technology is to be better applied to the protection of intellectual property rights, all parties in the industry chain should improve it from many aspects." Zhang Yanlai suggested that from the product design level, the law of electronic deposit should be improved Effectiveness, if the deposit tool cannot be recognized by law, it will lose its core value. Therefore, product providers should focus on how to improve the reliability and fairness of electronic deposits; in terms of user experience, users should consider different deposits What are the pain points faced in the scene and solve them to meet the needs of different users. (Our reporter Feng Fei)
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