Smear ＂Friends＂ on the Internet？ The ending …

Original Jiangmen Intermediate People’s Court Jiangmen Intermediate People’s Court

With the vigorous development of mobile Internet

Platforms such as Tik Tok and Weibo are increasingly becoming

An important channel of commercial marketing

However, some businesses are trying to gain illegitimate interests.

I don’t hesitate to use "stepping on" peers as "traffic passwords"

Recently, the People’s Court of Jianghai District concluded an unfair competition dispute case in which false videos were posted on social platforms to denigrate competitors.

Basic facts

Cao is the owner of a registered trademark of an automobile product, the legal representative of an automobile service company and the operator of an automobile product store. In June, 2023, Cao found that the account named "Mole Auto Film" posted a video on the vibrato short video platform, saying that "a chain old-fashioned store cut leeks" and "the quality was inferior while being cut leeks", and attached the company logo and topic labels such as "# Jiangmen Auto Film" and # Jiangmen Auto Maintenance "in a prominent position. Cao believes that the account produced and released the above-mentioned video without any evidence to prove that the thermal insulation film in the video came from Cao’s store, which caused serious damage to its goodwill, so he sued the account operator to the court. Up to now, the video involved in this case has been commented by 118 netizens, collected by 19 users and forwarded 18 times. The account operator, a music auto supplies company, argued that there was no causal relationship between its loss and the video involved.

Court hearing

After hearing the case, Jianghai Court held that the defendant, knowing that the trademark logo originated from the plaintiff, still highlighted the plaintiff’s exclusive trademark logo in the relevant video and attached a series of negative comments, which easily led the relevant audience to conclude that the plaintiff’s goods and services were of poor quality, and the related behavior constituted commercial slander. Combined with the market value of the plaintiff’s damaged goodwill, the influence scope of relevant remarks, the duration of the video involved, the fault degree of the defendant, the nature and plot of the commercial defamation behavior and the actual expenditure of the plaintiff’s rights protection, it was decided that a music auto supplies company would delete the relevant video, apologize and compensate Cao for his economic losses and reasonable expenses for stopping the infringement, totaling 15,000 yuan.

Court prompt

Operators and the public have the freedom of speech to make commercial evaluation of specific products, but they should follow the obligation of prudence. Operators with competitive relations deliberately fabricate and disseminate false or misleading information, which damages the business reputation and commodity reputation of competitors and constitutes unfair competition, and shall bear legal responsibilities.

Law link

People’s Republic of China (PRC) Anti-Unfair Competition Law

Eleventh operators shall not fabricate or disseminate false information or misleading information, which will damage the business reputation and commodity reputation of competitors.

Article 17 A business operator who violates the provisions of this Law and causes damage to others shall bear civil liability according to law.

If the legitimate rights and interests of business operators are damaged by acts of unfair competition, they may bring a lawsuit to the people’s court.

The amount of compensation for operators who have suffered from unfair competition shall be determined according to the actual losses they have suffered due to infringement; If the actual loss is difficult to calculate, it shall be determined according to the interests obtained by the infringer due to infringement. If the business operator maliciously commits an act of infringing on business secrets, and the circumstances are serious, the amount of compensation may be determined at more than one time and less than five times the amount determined according to the above method. The amount of compensation shall also include the reasonable expenses paid by the operator to stop the infringement.

If an operator violates the provisions of Articles 6 and 9 of this Law, and the actual losses suffered by the obligee due to infringement and the interests gained by the infringer due to infringement are difficult to determine, the people’s court shall award the obligee compensation of less than 5 million yuan according to the circumstances of the infringement.

Original title: "Online discrediting" friends "? The ending … "

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