On the afternoon of August 20th, photographer Dai Jianfeng (@ Jeff's Starry Sky Journey) participated in the topic of "Bai Yansong said that Visual China should truly reform" on social media and shared related videos. Previously, Vision China sent an email to Dai Jianfeng, claiming that his official account infringed the copyright of 173 photos of Vision China and asked him to compensate or buy a package. Dai Jianfeng found that all these photos were taken by himself. He exposed the matter online and stated that Visual China was illegally selling these photos.
At present, Visual China has taken down the images involved. Gu Haoran, an internal staff member of the company, said to Time Finance that after checking out the problem, the staff did not notice that the photographer and the owner of the official account were the same person. This matter has been on the hot search list for several consecutive days, and the copyright disputes of Visual China have once again returned to the public eye. In 2019, the website was suspended due to the inclusion of the national flag and black hole images in the copyright library, and in 2021, the work was priced at 180 yuan and only gave the photographer 1 cent
"According to Dai Jianfeng, on August 15, Vision China sent an email saying that it was found through monitoring that 173 pieces of visual content with copyright related rights were used without authorization in the use scenario of Star Travel's official account/website. The email provided solutions: first, Star Travel Company purchased a package of visual China copyright materials, with the purchase quantity not less than 173 pieces, and the unit price was 300 yuan/piece. The responsibility for using pictures before can be directly exempted, and 173 pictures can be downloaded from the image library; second, if there is no need for pictures temporarily, the two parties can also choose to settle, and pay the cost of 173 used pictures, with the unit price of 500 yuan/piece.
Where did you illegally obtain these photos for illegal sales, and how much illegal profit did you make? How many companies have you sued with my photos and how much illegal gains have you made On social media, Dai Jianfeng questioned Visual China.
According to the response from Visual China and interviews with relevant personnel, it was Dai Jianfeng who authorized the use of the photos in question to the foreign image library Stocktrek, which then placed the entire content of the library on Getty Images. As the exclusive partner of Getty Images in Chinese Mainland, Vision China has the right to sell all kinds of products including relevant pictures. "
Copyright protection revenue is very 'mysterious'
During the fermentation process of this event, the official microblog of China National Astronomy magazine also forwarded Dai Jianfeng's post, and roast that similar calls had been received, so the topic "China National Astronomy roast about visual China" also hit the hot search. At present, the forwarded post is no longer visible.
The 'rights based marketing' model of Visual China has always been criticized, involving a large number of lawsuits, and in most cases, the plaintiffs are the ones involved.
According to data from the China Judgments Online, as of August 21st, there are over 3300 judgments related to the keyword 'Visual China', of which approximately 2800 contain the keyword 'copyright'.
Visual China attached a copy of the business license of 'Hanhua Yimei' in the email sent to Dai Jianfeng Company. According to the annual report of Visual China, Hanhua Yimei refers to its wholly-owned subsidiary, Beijing Hanhua Yimei Pictures Co., Ltd. That is to say, Visual China may protect its rights under the name of its subsidiary or subsidiary. Visual China owns two wholly-owned subsidiaries, Hanhua Yimei (Tianjin) Image Technology Co., Ltd. and Huagai Creative (Beijing) Image Technology Co., Ltd. When searching for the full names of the two companies on the judicial documents website, more than 8000 and 6100 judicial documents were found respectively, with the top keyword being 'copyright'. In the financial report, Vision China will disclose the litigation matters of the company and its subsidiaries, but did not mention the litigation situation of its subsidiary.
In the first half of this year, Visual China and its subsidiaries filed 78 lawsuits/applications for arbitration, including 62 copyright disputes, 9 of which were filed by subsidiary Hanhua Yimei Visual Technology Co., Ltd., and 53 were filed by subsidiary Chengdu Guangchang Creative Technology Co., Ltd.
Visual China can use search software to see which accounts and platforms have used the works in the Visual China gallery, and then check based on past sales information to see if there are any purchase records.
If it's for personal use, it usually won't pay attention because the final result is just deleting the image Shan Yue said that it is difficult to confirm income from personal infringement behavior, and if Visual China sues, the compensation may not cover the cost of rights protection.
If Visual China goes through legal procedures, the case will be presented on platforms such as Tianyancha and Qichacha. Many infringing companies are concerned about causing adverse effects and choose to purchase image packages or directly compensate.
In addition, he also mentioned that Visual China often advocates for the protection of exclusive authorized content. According to the 2022 annual report, the company's exclusive or proprietary content accounts for over two-thirds.
How much income can creators receive from the rights protection of Visual China? The photographer Liu Guang, who has signed with the company for many years, revealed to Time Finance that in addition to the sales revenue of his works, he also has copyright protection income (rights protection income). According to the bill in December last year, about 25% of the copyright protection income belonged to him, and the rest belonged to Visual China.
Copyright protection income is still a 'black box' for photographers. Liuguang mentioned that he can only see the final amount of copyright protection income, but he doesn't know which photos of himself have been infringed and which company Visual China is seeking to protect its rights from.
Rights protection can encourage some new users to purchase packages
He doesn't know if these package incomes have his own share, nor does he know if copyright protection income only covers compensation awarded by the court.
He earns copyright protection income every month, but it's uncertain if other photographers do the same, as he uploads a relatively high number of photos and sells them
He (Liuguang) can only see the final amount of copyright protection income, but he doesn't know which photos of himself have been infringed and which company Visual China is seeking to protect its rights from.
Transfer consultant Lan Weikai said that this matter depends on the contract signed between Dai Jianfeng and Stocktrek, and then whether Visual China has the right to sell and protect its rights will be judged based on the contract.
He said that if Vision China is authorized according to the contract, there is no need to obtain the consent of the creator or have the creator appear in court when protecting rights, and the distribution of compensation paid by the infringing party also depends on the contract provisions
Each of the photos involved in the aforementioned email has an ID code on the Visual China website. When searching for the ID code on Time Finance, it was found that these photos have been taken down. Time Finance has contacted Dai Jianfeng and Stocktrek multiple times regarding this matter, but has not received a response as of the time of writing.