Douyin (Chinese version tiktok), Jianying (Chinese version capcut) software infringement!

Douyin (Chinese version tiktok), Jianying (Chinese version capcut) software infringement! Meishe won the first instance and received more than 20 million yuan in compensation

After the Beijing Intellectual Property Court ruled in June last year that ByteDance's six software products, including Massive Creative and Volcano Engine VESDK, had plagiarized the code, Meishe won the case. Recently, the Beijing High People's Court made a first-instance judgment on the infringement case of Douyin and Jianying, and Meishe won the case again.

The court determined that Douyin and Jianying infringed the copyright of Meishe SDK software, and ordered Beijing Douyin Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Douyin Information Service Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Douyin Company"), and Shenzhen Face Meng Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Face Meng Company") to publicly apologize to Meishe, and Douyin Company, Face Meng Company and other defendants compensate Meishe for economic losses and reasonable expenses totaling 20.4347 million yuan.

Since then, Meishe has won the first instance in 8 cases against ByteDance's affiliated companies for plagiarism of multiple software codes in the Beijing Intellectual Property Court and the Beijing High People's Court.

1. Case Background

Meishe is a service provider that provides integrated intelligent audio and video solutions. Its self-developed Meishe mobile video shooting and editing software, Meishe video editing SDK software (hereinafter referred to as "Meishe SDK software"), etc. have been widely promoted and applied in the Chinese market.

In March 2021, Meishe discovered that the audio and video editing and other related functional codes of Douyin software copied a large number of Meishe SDK software, which Meishe Company has the copyright. Seven softwares under ByteDance, such as Jianying and Juliang Chuangyi, also have traces of code plagiarism. In some places, even the function names used are exactly the same, and even the function names written incorrectly by Meishe are copied without error. For example, in a function name of Meishe, Format is misspelled as Foramt, and the same error also appears in the software accused of infringement.

In May 2021, Meishe sued several affiliated companies of ByteDance for plagiarism of multiple software codes in the Beijing Intellectual Property Court and the Beijing High People's Court on the grounds of infringement of computer software copyright.

At the end of June 2023, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court made a first-instance judgment on six cases of Meishe Company suing ByteDance's six software products, including Massive Creative, Faceu, Tuchong, Qingyan Camera, Duoshan, and Volcano Engine VESDK, for code plagiarism. The court ordered Douyin and other six defendants to stop infringing the copyright of Meishe SDK software, apologize, and compensate for economic losses and reasonable expenses totaling 6.27 million yuan.

At the end of May 2024, the Beijing Higher People's Court made a first-instance judgment on two cases of Meishe Company suing ByteDance's Douyin and Jianying for code plagiarism. The court ordered Douyin and other defendants in the two cases to apologize and compensate Meishe for economic losses and reasonable expenses totaling 20.4347 million yuan.

2. Douyin refused to submit the software source code. The court determined that Douyin software code was plagiarized based on the decompilation and comparison of the target code

In March 2021, Meishe Company discovered that the software code related to audio and video editing and processing for the basic and core functions of Douyin software plagiarized Meishe SDK software in large quantities. As of August 2020, the number of daily active users of Douyin software has exceeded 600 million.

The Beijing High People's Court has determined that Douyin developed and operated and disseminated Douyin software through the Douyin official website, and Douyin had the opportunity to access Meishe SDK software through an employee. The employee worked as a research and development engineer at Meishe and its affiliated company Xin Ao Te, and participated in the development of audio and video editing related software, especially Meishe video software, which has an extended relationship with Meishe SDK software. After leaving Meishe, he joined Douyin's affiliated company and became the head of IES audio and video, while Douyin's interactive entertainment research and development team was responsible for the development of multiple products such as "Douyin". The evidence in the case can determine that Douyin had access to Meishe SDK software code through this employee.

The court commissioned the National Industrial Information Security Development Research Center (hereinafter referred to as the "National Industrial Information Security Center") to conduct software code comparison and identification. Douyin did not submit the 14 versions of Douyin software source code claimed by Meishe as required within the period specified by the court. The source code submitted was only 6 TXT files, and after the court explained it many times, Douyin clearly stated that it would no longer submit the Douyin software source code involved in the case. Therefore, when Douyin refused to submit qualified Douyin software source code, making it impossible to check the substantial similarity of the software by directly comparing the source code of both softwares, the case can only compare the assembly code after decompiling the target programs of both softwares to determine the substantial similarity of the two softwares.

The Beijing High People's Court, based on the appraisal opinion issued by the National Industrial and Information Security Center and the evidence in the case, determined that the "libttvideoeditor.so" and "Libttvebase.so" library files in the 14 versions of Douyin software involved in the case and the "libNvStreamingSdkCore.so" library file in the Meishe SDK software are substantially similar and belong to the part that realizes the core functions of both softwares. The court finally determined that Douyin violated the modification rights, reproduction rights, and information network dissemination rights enjoyed by Meishe.

3. Douyin software infringed Meishe and was awarded 15.2 million yuan in compensation, and Jianying software infringed Meishe and was awarded 5 million yuan in compensation

The Beijing High Court accepted Meishe's claim to calculate the amount of damages based on the profits from infringement, taking into account the huge number of downloads of Douyin software (as of August 2020, Douyin's daily active users in China exceeded 600 million), Douyin's huge profits while saving considerable R&D costs (revenue reached 264 billion yuan during the infringement period), plagiarizing the core library files of Meishe SDK software to implement audio and video editing functions, the long duration of infringement, and Douyin's refusal to submit source code without justifiable reasons to hinder the court's investigation, and finally calculated the profits from infringement to be 15.2 million yuan.

The situation of Jianying software is similar to that of Douyin software. The court also took into account the above factors and finally calculated the profits from infringement to be 5 million yuan.