Shanghai Pafuluo Stationery Co., Ltd. vs. Shanghai Art Imagine Stationery Co., Ltd., et al. for Appeal of Dispute over Infringement of Copyright
Basic facts
Set against a dark red background, the homepage of Shanghai Pafuluo Stationery Co., Ltd. was added white starlight dynamic effect, copper bell magic sound as well as background music. The company filed a lawsuit as it found that Shanghai Art Imagine Stationery Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Europe Crocodile Stationery Co., Ltd. had plagiarized its website and infringed its copyright, requesting the court to rule that Shanghai Art Imagine Stationery Co., Ltd and Shanghai Europe Crocodile Stationery Co., Ltd. stop the infringement, eliminate adverse effects and compensate for loss totaling RMB 223,000.
Results of judgment
The People’s Court of Minhang Court after the first trial determined that Shanghai Art Imagine Stationery Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Europe Crocodile Stationery Co., Ltd. had infringed the webpage copyright of Shanghai Pafuluo Stationery Co., Ltd. and requested the two defendants stop the infringement and compensate Shanghai Pafuluo Stationery Co., Ltd. for economic loss and reasonable cost of RMB 30,000. Shanghai Art Imagine Stationery Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Europe Crocodile Stationery Co., Ltd. did not agree with the decision and filed an appeal. After the second trial, Shanghai Intellectual Property Court rendered a ruling to reject the appeal and affirm the judgment in the first trial.
Typical significance
This case was about whether the content arrangement of a website constituted a work in the copyright law. The trial court viewed that though the webpage of the site in dispute contained a lot of elements known to the public domain, the homepage of the website in dispute reflected the unique design in color, content selection, ways of presentation and overall arrangement and other aspects apart from the columns and structural elements commonly contained by general company homepage. Presenting the visual artistic effects to some extent, the involved homepage had the originality and reproducibility and was a work in the copyright law. The standards on protecting the copyright of webpage works determined in this case had reference significance to the trials of similar cases.
