Chinese court accepts blockchain-authenticated evidence in copyright case

A court in China has decided to accept evidence authenticated with blockchain technology in a copyright infringement case.

The Hangzhou Internet Court, which specialises in internet-related cases, said last month that “it should maintain an open and neutral stance on using blockchain to analyse individual cases”, as reported by news website CoinDesk.

The case involved a copyright infringement claim filed by a China-based media company called Huatai Yimei against a technology company.

According to the claim, the defendant had reprinted Huatai Yimei’s work onto its website without authorisation.

During the hearing, the plaintiff presented the court with screenshots of the allegedly infringing websites and source codes that it had uploaded onto a blockchain provider.

This was used as evidence in convincing the court that the defendant was liable for copyright infringement.

The court said that blockchain shouldn’t be excluded as evidence just because it is a “complex technology”. As a result, the court ruled that this blockchain-based evidence could be accepted, and the judge ruled in favour of the plaintiff.

Blockchain is a decentralised way of sharing information through ‘blocks’ that are linked using cryptography. The technology was initially designed to serve as a method of transaction for cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

The interplay of IP and blockchain is attracting increasing attention. In June, the European Union Intellectual Property Office announced the winners of its inaugural blockchain anti-counterfeiting competition, while in the same month, an industry conference heard that the collaborative nature of blockchain presents challenges from an IP perspective.

Source: WIPR website

Editor: dora