This is a guiding case published by the Supreme People's Court.
Company G*, a non-party outside the case, authorized Company A to display, sell and license others to use the company's "getty Images" brand pictures in China, and Company A has the right to file a lawsuit against the infringement in its own name. Company A discovered that Company D used 4 of the above brand images without permission. Company A then filed a lawsuit on the grounds of copyright infringement, requesting an order to order Company D to compensate for economic losses and reasonable rights protection expenses. In order to support its appeal, Company A submitted evidence such as the authorization confirmation letter issued by Company G* and the website rights statement. The pictures involved had the watermark of "getty Images®" content. Company D argued that the trademark registration mark "®" in the upper right corner of the watermark of the picture involved was not the author's signature indicating the identity of the creator. There was also the photographer's signature and other brand names below the watermark, which showed that the copyright of the picture belonged to the author and not Company D or G company. Company D also asked Company G via email about the ownership of the pictures involved in the case, and the reply it received was that the pictures involved were submitted by photographers, and the company paid royalties to the photographers after selling them in its own name, but the photographer retained the rights to the pictures. Copyright. Based on this, Company D believed that since the contributor retained the copyright, neither Company G* nor Company A enjoyed the copyright of the pictures involved in the case, and Company A’s lawsuit should be dismissed.
On September 17, 2019, the Tianjin Third Intermediate People's Court issued (2019) Jin-03-Zhi-Min-Chu No. 73 Civil Judgment, ordering Company D to compensate Company A for economic losses and reasonable expenses totaling 8,000 yuan; dismissing Company A's other claims. Company D was dissatisfied with the first-instance judgment and appealed. The Tianjin Higher People's Court issued the (2020) Jin-Min-Zhong No. 311 Civil Judgment on July 16, 2020, rejecting the appeal and upholding the original judgment. Company D was dissatisfied and applied to the Supreme People's Court for retrial.
The Supreme People's Court ruled to retrial, and issued (2021)Zui-Gao-Fa-Min-Zai No. 355 Civil Judgment on December 20, 2021, revoking the first and second instance judgments and rejecting all claims of Company A. The Supreme People's Court held that in addition to the "getty Images®" watermark, the pictures involved were also marked with the photographer's signature and other brand names, and "getty Images" was immediately followed by the trademark registration mark "®". Therefore, this watermark alone cannot determine that the copyright of the picture involved belongs to G* Company. In addition, Company A also submitted an authorization confirmation letter and website rights statement issued by G* Company. However, the authorization confirmation letter can only prove the fact that G* Company authorized Company A, and is not evidence that G* Company owns the copyright to the pictures involved. The rights statement is a unilateral statement. In the absence of other evidence, the copyright ownership cannot be determined based on the rights statement alone. In this case, a certain American image company should further bear the burden of proving that G* Company owned the copyright of the pictures involved, but it failed to prove it. On the contrary, based on the rebuttal evidence submitted by Company D such as the reply email from Company G*.
Court held that in case of disputed copyright ownership, the ownership of works cannot be determined solely based on watermarks or rights statements.