In fact, cracking down on pirated online courses, textbooks and supplementary teaching materials is an inherent part of strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights. It is also an inevitable requirement for protecting the healthy growth of consumers and teenagers. Moreover, relevant departments attach great importance to the related issues of piracy and infringement. It is learned that In 2022 alone, during the "Sword Net 2022" special operation jointly organized by the National Copyright Administration, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Cyberspace Administration of China, various regions investigated and handled 1,180 cases of online copyright infringement, deleted 840,000 infringing and pirated links, shut down 1,692 infringing and pirated websites (apps), and dealt with 1 infringing account. 540,000.
The spontaneous rights protection actions originated from enterprises have also become an important supplement to the fight against piracy. In order to maintain a favorable business environment and safeguard the interests of both the enterprise itself and its users, as a provider of vocational education examination and training, Fenbi has long been committed to combating piracy and has achieved remarkable results. It is understood that as of mid-July 2023, Fenbi has cumulatively handled nearly 300,000 infringing links, involving some platforms. Since the beginning of 2023 alone, it has dealt with over 50,000 infringing links. In addition, Fenbi has initiated a total of 868 civil litigation cases. Currently, 162 cases have received favorable judgments or mediation documents, and the remaining cases are still under follow-up. The total amount of compensation recovered is approximately 6.06 million yuan.
Educational products should pay more attention to combating piracy
When a brand develops to a stage with certain influence, how to combat piracy seems to become one of the compulsory subjects for enterprises. Unlike literary works, the piracy of educational products poses a certain risk of misleading, especially brand infringement, which often leads to "selling dog meat under the guise of sheep". Since its establishment, Fenbi has encountered several "fake" institutions.
In July 2020, the staff of Chaoyang Fenbi discovered that a local company named Chaoyang Fenyi Bi Yi Gong Yi Kao Technology Co., Ltd. was recruiting students under the banner of "Fenbi Gong Kao", printing the relevant words on its own promotional materials, and its business scope was exactly the same as that of "Fenbi". To prevent more students from being confused, "Fenbi" promptly refuted the rumors and reported the case to the police, while the piracy company chose to Sue "Fenbi". The court held that "Chalk" merely clarified that the two companies had no connection and there was no malicious or distorted expression of intent. Therefore, the court did not support the plaintiff's request.
Similarly, there is a company in Beijing called "Fenbi Huikao" (i.e., Beijing Fenbi Tou Education Technology Co., LTD.) that also relies on the "Fenbi" brand to promote and recruit students, which has led to a large number of complaints flooding into Fenbi, seriously damaging the brand's reputation. As a result, Beijing Fenbi Lantian Technology Co., Ltd. has taken Beijing Fenbi Tou Education Technology Co., Ltd. to court for infringement of the "Fenbi" trademark rights and unfair competition disputes.
After trial, the Chaoyang District People's Court of Beijing held that "Fenbi Huikao" constituted trademark infringement and unfair competition. The first-instance judgment ordered Beijing Fenbi Tou Education Technology Co., Ltd. to immediately cease using the "Fenbi Huikao" trademark and the enterprise name containing the word "Fenbi", and to compensate Beijing Fenbi Lantian Technology Co., Ltd. for economic losses totaling over 320,000 yuan. Although "Fenbi Huikao" filed an appeal, the result of the second instance, which was also the final instance, was "the appeal was rejected and the original judgment was upheld".
It is learned that in order to prevent the emergence of infringing institutions and safeguard the fundamental interests of students, Fenbi has simultaneously carried out trademark registration work. Up to now, Beijing Fenbi Lantian Technology Co., Ltd. has registered 132 trademark registration certificates.
The core competitiveness of education and training enterprises is protected
In addition to the infringement of brand trademarks, another form of piracy may be subject to more severe legal responsibilities.
On March 9, 2022, under the strong guidance of the Environmental and Food and Drug Safety Detachment of the Hangzhou Public Security Bureau, the Gongshu District Branch of the Hangzhou Public Security Bureau carried out a concentrated crackdown on the "08.31" copyright infringement case in Gongshu, Yuhang and other places, and arrested 7 people involved on the spot and over 1,600 unsold pirated books. According to relevant news, from April 2021 to March 2022, the company and its personnel involved in the case reprinted and sold books such as "500 Questions for the Final Battle of the Civil Service Examination" (a 10-volume set) and "The Rules of Essay Writing" (in two volumes) for the civil service examination, with a total sales volume of over 18,000 orders, infringing upon the company's interests by more than 2 million yuan.
It is learned that the pirated teaching and learning materials for the civil service examination belong to the "Fenbi" brand. The company has proactively registered the copyright of such best-selling books with the National Intellectual Property Administration. Up to now, it has successfully obtained 27 copyright registration certificates. According to the "Criminal Case Settlement Agreement", the infringing company and the five involved individuals are required to compensate Beijing Fenbi Lantian Technology Co., Ltd. for its losses and costs of rights protection in installments.
As an educational and training institution, courses and teaching materials are regarded as one of the core competencies of the enterprise. Piracy not only seriously infringes upon the interests of the enterprise, but also fails to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. Once there are errors or omissions in the content of pirated textbooks and courses, it will directly affect the learning outcomes of students. Compared with the piracy of general literary works, it is more harmful.
Enterprises join the anti-counterfeiting campaign to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests
In recent years, with the vigorous development of online education, the sale of pirated online courses has formed an industrial chain. There was once a media report on such a case. In some special groups, the phenomenon of selling pirated online courses really exists. According to this series of reports, they usually pay several hundred yuan as agency fees first, then start to enjoy online courses from well-known institutions for free, and later try to recover their costs by means of acquiring new customers and selling courses. It is understood that the agency will offer new agent training courses to new agents, such as adding them to Q&A groups, book groups, cloud disk groups, etc., and then provide them with agent traffic diversion tutorials and training. Most agents will look for target customers on various online platforms and get them to join the groups under the pretext of organizing learning, and then sell related pirated courses in the groups.
What is even more perplexing is that many agents are well aware that selling pirated copies constitutes an infringement. However, due to the difficulty in obtaining evidence for accountability, in their view, the accountability for piracy is endless and cannot be completely eradicated from the source - this undoubtedly adds to the difficulty of combating piracy.
After the copyright holders take strict inspection actions, piracy institutions will also act promptly, converting risky courses into encrypted ones and selling them only after the risks are reduced. And Fenbi is one of the institutions that piracy agencies claim to be "strictly inspecting". Not only have high-end courses been placed on the list of prohibited sales, but Fenbi has also recently cooperated with the police to dismantle a gang selling pirated courses, involving core courses of multiple educational training institutions, with over a thousand agents and a huge amount of money involved in the case.
From a legal perspective, selling pirated online courses is not only an infringement involving the agency, but also the agency group involved in the sale of pirated online courses may have to bear the same legal consequences, which is not impossible to hold accountable. However, holding people accountable and safeguarding their rights require a great deal of human and material resources.
To some extent, rights protection faces multiple challenges. However, if all enterprises choose to give up and ignore the social value they should bear, then piracy will directly affect the business environment of the education and training industry as well as the interests of consumers. This time, the collaboration between Fenbi and relevant departments not only strongly cracked down on the piracy industry chain, helping many institutions in the industry recover their losses, but also will encourage more enterprises to combat piracy and protect their rights according to law, promoting the standardized operation of the industry.
In fact, cracking down on pirated online courses, textbooks and supplementary teaching materials is not only the responsibility of relevant departments, but also a task that parents, schools, enterprises and the whole society should attach great importance to. In order to create a better business environment, set an industry benchmark, and more importantly, to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Fenbi users, Fenbi stated that in the future, it will fully cooperate with relevant departments and intensify the crackdown on piracy. Whether it is online piracy or physical piracy, Fenbi will never give up the opportunity to protect its own rights and interests. This is both an obligation and a responsibility.
Industry insiders believe that combating piracy requires the joint efforts of all sectors of society to solve. If enterprises can assume more responsibilities for rights protection, it is believed that they can curb the development of piracy to a certain extent and help maintain a good social environment. By Liu Yang