On 14 October 2015, a local court in Shanghai adopted the latest in a series of judgments on the legality of software and other technical measures that block or skip advertisements on digital platforms.
In its judgment, the Shanghai Yangpu District People’s Court found that Juwangshi Technology Corporation (“Juwangshi“), a video streaming service aggregator, had breached anti-unfair competition rules by utilizing certain decryption measures to block ads while displaying videos streamed from iQiyi, one of China’s main online video sites. The judgment also addressed the issue of online businesses “scraping content” (i.e., using information) from other websites.
The gist […] is that a business model based on ad revenues is legitimate. Behind this finding is a reality that video and other online platform providers make substantial investments into the acquisition of digital content. As China is increasing its level of intellectual property rights protection – which frequently applies to online content – the courts seem to find ad revenue-based business models worthy of protection.
Read the full article on our Global Media and Communications Watch Blog.