China News Service, Haikou, October 13 (Wang Xiaobin Wang Zhou) Find a popular novel, change the title, change the names of the characters, put together some plots, and make a short play online. This kind of "washing the manuscript" style adaptation now has a typical court ruling case. Recently, the Intellectual Property Court of Hainan Free Trade Port concluded a copyright infringement case. The novel "Uncle Emperor XXXX" (hereinafter referred to as "Uncle Emperor") was allegedly "borrowed" and made into the short drama "The Prince XXXX" (hereinafter referred to as "The Prince"). The court determined that the short play constituted infringement and explained the logic of the determination in detail.
The court found that in February 2024, the author An began to publish the serialized novel "Uncle Emperor" on the Qimao Chinese website. The work ranked high on the lists of multiple platforms and had a huge reading volume. After Qimao Company obtained the exclusive license, it also authorized Dian Company to adapt the novel into a short play. In November 2024, a short drama called "The Prince" was released on a certain platform. The drama’s cumulative native views on Douyin reached 35.966 million, and its cumulative views on Kuaishou’s popular data reached 13.042 million.
Qimao Company and Dianmou Company believed that the character setting, storyline, line expressions and other aspects of the short drama "The Prince" plagiarized the novel "Uncle Emperor", so they sued nine companies, including the short drama producer and the communication platform, to the court for compensation of 5 million yuan. The defendant argued that the short play "The Prince" was adapted from another novel "Xuanmen XXXX" and was not substantially similar to the novel "Uncle Emperor"; the novel "Uncle Emperor" itself also plagiarized earlier works and was not original.
The Intellectual Property Court of Hainan Free Trade Port held after hearing that, after comparing it with the prior works claimed by the defendant, the novel "Uncle Emperor" also involves the heroine's time travel background, the hero's death soon, the heroine saves the hero and other character settings and plots, but the specific expression is obviously different from the prior works. The court pointed out that the similarity at the ideological level does not belong to the "substantial similarity" called "substantial similarity" under the Copyright Law. The novel "Uncle Emperor" is original and is a literary work protected by the Copyright Law.
To determine whether the short play "The Prince" constituted infringement, the court determined from three aspects: the short play's shooting time, creation completion date, and online time were all later than the serialization time of the novel, so the defendant may have access to the content of the novel; the short play and the novel are highly similar in terms of character setting, storyline, line expression, etc. The specific lines, narration, plot advancement, important character settings and relationships can all be found in the novel; the defendant claimed that the short play was adapted from the novel "Xuanmen XXXX", but the similarities in expression between the short play "The Prince" and the novel "Uncle Emperor" are difficult to find in the novel "Xuanmen XXXX". In summary, the court found that the producer of the short drama "The Prince" used the novel "Uncle Emperor" without permission, infringing the rights of adaptation, filming, and information network dissemination.
Ultimately, the court determines the amount of compensation based on the specific types of rights violated by different defendants. Among them, the defendant who carried out the act of adapting and filming compensated the two plaintiffs 100,000 yuan, and the defendant who carried out the information network dissemination compensated the two plaintiffs 350,000 yuan. Some operating platforms bear joint and several liability for infringement of the right of information network dissemination in the range of 10,000 to 180,000 yuan.
The Hainan Free Trade Port Intellectual Property Court stated that this case is a typical case of copyright protection in the field of short drama adaptations of online literature, and its core significance lies in clarifying the application of the "substantial similarity" determination rule in the field of short drama adaptations. The plot selection, structural arrangement, and plot advancement design of novels and short plays reflect the author's unique choices, judgments, and trade-offs, and constitute expression protected by copyright law. When making specific comparisons, we should consider the common creation and expression methods of literary works, the characteristics of novels and short plays, and the inevitable requirements for genre transformation, and gradually analyze from the outside to the inside from multiple dimensions. (over)
