WeChat Official Accounts Forward Articles, Caution!

The operator of a WeChat official account forwarded an article of another WeChat official account without authorization, and be deemed as infringing the other operator’s copyright, including the right of authorship, the right to modify, network dissemination of information and remuneration. Finally, the defendant operator was ordered to issue public apology and compensate RMB 1 Yuan to the plaintiff operator.

People are accustomed to forward articles by WeChat, why such action shall be deemed as an infringement? Where is the boundary between the fair use and infringement? In order to keep ourselves from infringing others’ right, or protect ourselves from such infringement, it would be better for us to solve the above problems.

According to “Copyright Law” Article 10, Article 48, “Regulation on the Protection of the Right to Network Dissemination of Information” Article 2, other relevant provisions, and the judicial practice rules, there are some factors shall be considered on distinguishing the fair use and infringement.

1. Whether it is a WeChat official account who forwards articles. When an article is forwarded in the personal moment, the readers are limited. On the contrary, a WeChat official account is a platform which sends information to those unspecified readers. This function is as similar as a website, and it shall be deemed as the execution of the right of network dissemination of information, which actually shall be executed by the copyright owner. Many WeChat official accounts are operated by individuals, but the key on identifying an infringement shall be whether it executes the right to network dissemination of information and the scope of readers, other than the nature of the operator.

2. Whether the author and source have been indicated. According to “Regulation on the Protection of the Right to Network Dissemination of Information”, Article 10, paragraph 2, regardless of the authorization of the copyright owner, anyone who forwards an article shall indicate the author and source, otherwise such action shall be deemed as the infringement to the right of authorship.

3. Whether such articles have been modified before forwarding. To modify a work without authorization will infringe the right to modify of the copyright owner. If such modification distorted the work, it shall be deemed as infringe the right of integrity of the copyright owners. In addition, according to “Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Cases involving Civil Disputes over Infringements upon Personal Rights and Interests through Information Networks”, such actions may possibly be involved in the infringement on the right of name, reputation, privacy, and other personal rights.

In Practice, many companies have registered their WeChat official accounts, for these companies, on the one hand, they shall check whether there are risks related to the above elements, before they are going to forward any articles; on the other hand, when others have infringed these companies’ copyright, it would be better for these companies to inform the operators of such public service platform (such as WeChat) in written, where these operators refuse to delete, the companies can bring a lawsuit against relevant people/entities for the infringement on copyright.