XV

In view of the large investment in television series and the wide scope of the dissemination, if the order to stop the infringement is bound to cause a great waste of social resources and will harm the public interest,even if a TV series violates the rights of the music copyright owner by using another person’s music without permission, the court may not support the rights owner’s claim of suspending the broadcast, but instead take this factor into account when determining the amount of compensation.

Case 1: Z is the author of the musical work A.Z claimed that Company Y invested in shooting and completed the TV series X in 2009.In the 43rd episode of the series, the musical work A was used as interlude song without permission.The length of the interlude was about 1 minute and 15 seconds.However, Company Y did not indicate the author of this interlude was Z.Z then filed a lawsuit in the court, asking for the order to stop Company Y’s infringement (including stopping the broadcast, sales and online transmission of TV series X, etc.) and requested compensation for losses.((2012) Gao Min Zhong Zi No.4116)(https://www.daowen.com)

The court held that: Z is the author of the musical work A, and his copyright is protected by Chinese law.The interlude A was used in the 43rd episode of the TV series involved, without Z’s permission and without giving Z a signature or paying him remuneration, which has already constituted an infringement upon Z’s right of authorship, right to use,and the right to license others to use the music work and get paid.However, although Z also requested that the court order Company Y to stop the infringement, the court did not support his claim because it may cause a great waste of social resources and would have adverse consequences for the public in view of the large investment in television series and the wide scope of dissemination.But the court would take this factor into account when judging the compensation.

In the court decision of Beijing High People’s Court (2004) Gao Min Zhong Zi No.627, “there is no legal basis to use the public interest as the reason to sell infringing duplicate works, and the original court’s judgement was inappropriate”.Compared with the lawsuits between Z and Company Y in 2012, it can be seen that in 2012 when Beijing High People’s Court identif ied similar issues, specific analysis was made based on factors such as the facts, the actual scope of the work’s dissemination,and the production cost, which did not exclude the way of avoiding taking effective measures to stop the infringement in order to protecting social resources and public interests.