Original link: https://www.williamlong.info/archives/6856.html
On July 7, according to the Beijing Court Trial Information Network, the first-instance and second-instance judgments of Liu Xiang and Beijing New Oriental Future Overseas Consulting Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as New Oriental Future Overseas) were made public.
Liu Xiang sued that on August 9, 2016, New Oriental Future went abroad without permission, and published the article “From Liu Xiang 8 years ago to Fu Yuanhui this year, China is really strong” on the WeChat public account “New Oriental American Middle School Study Abroad”. The use of several portrait photos of Liu Xiang, and the advertising and commercial information of the “National Tour of Little Ivy League Middle Schools in the United States” is attached at the end of the article, which constitutes an infringement of Liu Xiang’s portrait rights.
Liu Xiang filed a lawsuit with the court, requesting the defendant to apologize for 60 consecutive days on the nationally published newspaper and its official WeChat account, as well as 150,000 yuan in compensation for economic losses and mental damage, and 5,000 yuan in reasonable expenses for rights protection.
New Oriental Futures Abroad argued that it deleted the aforementioned article immediately after learning of the alleged infringement. There was no intentional infringement subjectively, and objectively, it did not cause any loss to Liu Xiang, and the amount of compensation Liu Xiang claimed was too high.
As determined by the court, the screenshot of the background information of the WeChat official account shows that the aforementioned article has been deleted, and the number of readings at the time of deletion was 676.
The first instance held that New Oriental’s going abroad constituted an infringement of Liu Xiang’s portrait right. Although the article involved used Liu Xiang’s portrait, the relevant pictures were all photos of Liu Xiang’s stadium, and Liu Xiang’s portrait was not vilified or defaced. The infringement was minor, and a written apology was ordered. As appropriate, the amount of Liu Xiang’s economic loss was determined to be 6,000 yuan.
On July 7, Wei Yanling, a partner of Beijing Yunting Law Firm, told Jiemian Education that in such portrait rights cases, if the defendant uses portrait photos for commercial use, it will The decision is made after comprehensive consideration of factors such as profit.
“The compensation of 6,000 yuan is mainly based on its use form, (the portrait photo) is used in the article, and the photo of Liu Xiang is posted alone in a particularly conspicuous place, such as billboards, website homepages and other scenes displayed alone, The plot is different. The court will consider many plots.” Wei Yanling told Jiemian Education.
Liu Xiang is not the first celebrity to be sued over the use of his photo in a public account article. In 2020, a self-media blogger was sued in court for using the portrait of artist Ju Jingyi without permission. The court of first instance rejected all Ju Jingyi’s claims and held that the WeChat public account published the article in question was not for profit, nor did it use Ju Jingyi’s commercial value to drain traffic and increase sales, so there was no fault and should not be held responsible Tort Liability.
Ju Jingyi refused to accept the first-instance verdict and appealed to the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate Court. The second instance failed again. The judgment of Ju Jingyi’s portrait rights case reads: “As a public figure in the entertainment industry, the plaintiff should have a certain duty of tolerance for the public’s evaluation of his publicly released photos.”
In the case of celebrity portrait rights, the tweets published by the public accounts of medical beauty platforms such as Gengmei and Xinxing have been sued by many celebrities because they often involve speculation and judgment on celebrity plastic surgery.
Tianyancha App shows that Beijing Perfect Creative Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Beijing Perfect Company), the operator of the well-known medical beauty platform “Gengmei App”, has had 24 portrait rights disputes since 2019, involving Jin Dong, Zhao Liying, Tang Yan, Myolie Wu and many other artists.
In the dispute with the celebrity portrait rights, Beijing Perfect Company has been sentenced to lose the lawsuit and pay compensation for many times. For example, in 2020, he was sentenced to compensate Liu Shishi for economic losses of 130,000 yuan, and published an apology statement on the public account for 10 consecutive days; he was sentenced to compensate Wu Jingyi for a total of over 200,000 yuan, etc.
Source: Interface News
This article is reprinted from: https://www.williamlong.info/archives/6856.html
This site is for inclusion only, and the copyright belongs to the original author.