The first instance trial of the lawsuit filed by Louis Cha against defendants Yang et. al for copyright infringement and unfair competition (the lawsuit filed by Jin Yong against defendants Jiang Nan et. al for copyright infringement and unfair competition) was recently concluded with a ruling that Yang’s act of publishing the novel There They Were, which incorporates elements of works of the plaintiff such as character names and relationships, with a view to gaining competitive advantage, gained the defendant huge profits and seriously impeded the plaintiff’s ability to exploit his own work. Consequently, the court ruled that these acts constituted acts of unfair competition, and the defendants were held liable for infringement in accordance with the law.

Article 2 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law (revised in 2017) stipulates that, while carrying out production or business activities, a business operator must abide by the principles of consent, equality, fairness and good faith, and must comply with applicable law and business ethics. For the purpose of the law, “unfair competition” refers to any business operator's act of participating in productive or operational activities in violation of the provisions of the law that disrupt the competitive order of the market and infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of other business operators or consumers. Although There They Were was written by Yang and was first placed online for netizens to read free of charge, Yang and the other defendants repeatedly published the novel with a huge circulation for profit after the novel gained increasing attention from readers. The act exceeded necessary limits by forming a competitive relationship with the plaintiff in the market of book publishing, planning and distribution with respect to sales, market share, the development of derivative works, etc. Consequently, the acts of the two parties fell within the scope of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, under which Yang’s act was improper by nature, contravened business ethics that are publicly recognized by the cultural industry, and are therefore prohibited by the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.

(Source: SOHU.com)