International Law

Wanfang Data and the Benefits of Copyright Infringement

By Stan

The facts:

According to Beijing Chaoyang People’s Court, 480 academics have sued Wanfang Data, an Internet information contents provider in China, for illegally including their dissertations in Wanfang’s data resource system and its dissertation database called Dissertations of China.

This has been the third lawsuit targeted at Wanfang Data in addition to the two that happened in June 2008.

The 480 academics say in the indictment that these dissertations, which are completed by them independently, have not been published yet. However, Wanfang Data made these dissertations into electronic versions and put them in its data resource system and Dissertations of China without the authorizations of the writers. The company reaps high profits by selling its system to libraries and offering online browsing and downloading services. The behavior of Wanfang Data has violated their copyrights, they say. Therefore, they require Wanfang Data to make a public apology and compensate their economic losses and emotional distress.

The demanded compensation amount is reportedly about CNY7,000 for each person, so the company may face a total compensation of CNY3.5 million in the three lawsuits.

 A rather normal occurrence, but it is instructive to take a look at the numbers. Damages per person are RMB 7,000 (a little over one thousand USD). If there was only one or two defendants, would this case have ever been filed? If you were a lawyer, could you afford to take that case? (Be honest.)

This is a (formal or informal) class action involving 480 plaintiffs. The damages claimed, RMB 3.5 million, only appear respectable in the aggregate.

If you’re keeping score at home regarding barriers to copyright enforcement in China, put damage awards near or at the top of the list, and you can use this suit as a case study.

Full post as published by China Hearsay on September 04, 2008 (boomark / email).