by April Fan
In 2025, the High People’s Court of Guangdong Province and the High People’s Court of Chongqing respectively rendered final judgments in copyright infringement disputes involving Kwai (international name for Kuaishou 快手, one of the country’s biggest short‑video and livestreaming platforms). The judgments concern copyright infringement of the hit programs De ** She (Seasons 1 and 2) and Chang * Si (Season 1).
In both cases, the two courts held that the platform was clearly at fault and the circumstances of infringement were serious, and therefore applied punitive damages in accordance with the law. The final damages awarded against the platform in each case reached tens of millions yuan, fundamentally changing the long‑standing perception in judicial practice that copyright infringement cases entail “high costs for rights protection but low costs for infringement.”
These judgments have sparked extensive discussions in both legal and industrial circles. Many observers maintain that this marks an important shift in the approach of Chinese courts with regard to determining platform liability and calculating damages for large‑scale online copyright infringement.
What Happened in the Two Cases?
In the De ** She case, the High People’s Court of Guangdong Province pointed out that the infringing acts in question were not merely caused by user uploads. During the hit broadcast of the program, Kwai directly released infringing videos through its official accounts. Furthermore, a large number of infringing videos remained unaddressed for more than seven working days after notifications were received. On this basis, the court held that such conduct went beyond ordinary negligence and constituted intentional acquiescence in infringement.
The Chang * Si case heard by the High People’s Court of Chongqing Municipality presented another equally noteworthy factual pattern. The right holder sent a total of 465 infringement notices, covering 60,599 infringing links. Among them, more than 12,000 infringing videos were not removed within seven working days.
The court found that Kwai failed to timely fulfill its statutory “notice-and-takedown” obligation, and the large scale and long duration of infringement sufficiently demonstrated its obvious fault.
The High People’s Court of Guangdong Province took the production cost of the work concerned as the starting point, and, taking into account factors such as market licensing practices for popular film and television works, the duration of infringement, and the commercial value of the work, determined the base damages amount to be RMB 30,948,000 (around 4.5 million USD). On this basis, the court applied one-time punitive damages and ultimately fully upheld Tencent’s claim of RMB 60 million (8.7 million USD).
The High People’s Court of Chongqing Municipality calculated Kwai’s illegal gains by using the formula: revenue per user viewing minute × total viewing duration of infringing videos × profit margin × contribution rate. It then applied one-time punitive damages and ordered compensation of more than RMB 29.1 million (4.2 million USD).
Legal Basis and Jurisprudential Analysis of Copyright Infringement by Internet Service Providers
Article 1194 of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the Civil Code) stipulates the liability borne by internet service providers for direct infringement. Such liability is either independent liability based on their own conduct, or joint and several liability arising from joint infringement.
The “notice-and-takedown rule” under Article 1195 of the Civil Code and the “know or ought to know rule” under Article 1197 constitute the norms governing the contributory infringement liability of internet service providers. Where an internet user infringes upon the legitimate rights and interests of others by using the internet services provided by an internet service provider, the latter shall be liable for contributory infringement based on the direct infringement committed by the internet user if it fails to fulfill its statutory duty of care and is subjectively at fault.
Exploration of Platform Liability in Copyright Infringement Cases
For a long time, the amount of damages awarded in certain copyright infringement cases has been insufficient to compensate right holders for their actual losses, let alone effectively deter infringing acts.
Meanwhile, as a special category of subjects, internet service providers differ from individual defendants in traditional infringement cases. Their infringing activities tend to be highly technical, rapid, and large‑scale, and the legal bases for their liability for direct and indirect infringement are fundamentally distinct.
Ignoring the technological and scale-related particularities of internet service providers, failing to distinguish between the nature of their direct and indirect infringement, and mechanically applying or refusing to apply the punitive damages regime would result in a lack of rationality and scientific consistency in the application of the system across different cases.
In both cases, the courts did not limit themselves to a formal judgment of “platform neutrality.” Instead, they conducted a comprehensive evaluation by taking into account factors including the popularity of the works involved, the scale of infringing content, the timing of infringement (especially during the peak broadcast period of the programs), and the platform’s response mechanism. On such basis, the courts ultimately affirmed the legitimacy of applying punitive damages.
Through punitive damages and the filtering of infringing works, the courts have strengthened intellectual property protection, which provides a strong incentive for purifying the online environment and supporting original creation, and is highly beneficial to the judicial practice of copyright infringement in China.
These two cases demonstrate that courts are seeking to strengthen the judicial protection of copyright through more deterrent remedies and more refined economic analysis.
Outlook on the Future
China’s copyright governance system for long‑form and short‑form video is still evolving. Whether the punitive damages regime can form a stable and predictable framework for application to platform contributory infringement in the future remains to be tested in practice.
However, one thing is certain: coordination between judicial strengthening and industry self‑regulation will be a key factor in building a healthy online copyright ecosystem. Only when the punitive damages regime is properly applied, while platforms continuously improve their content management and technical governance capabilities, can collaborative governance be truly realized.
These two judgments are not only final rulings on specific disputes, but may also serve as an important milestone in the restructuring of China’s digital copyright governance landscape.