Today’s quickly escalating war of words between the two Chinese video-streaming sites Tudou (NASDAQ:TUDO) and Youku (NYSE:YOKU) – which centers on alleged TV show piracy, with both sides accusing the other of it – is still rumbling on. And now Tudou has provided notarized proof that Youku pirated seven episodes of one Taiwanese chat show and included those in its series catalog. Here’s the first claim from last night, and then the counter-claim this morning.
A Tudou representative told PO that:
The lawsuit against Tudou is Youku’s trick to distract the media’s attention. Youku has been spreading false information, accusing Tudou of copyright infringement of its content. After Tudou carefully checked its own inventory, it has been proved that Youku’s accusations are fabricated. The so-called ‘pirated’ content, including both Tudou copyrighted content which has been accused as infringing content by Youku, has already been promptly removed by Tudou as soon as it has been notified.
The release images include a notarized document that verifies its screenshots:
Partial views of Tudou's notarized evidence, released today? Will Youku make the same move soon?
Copyright Clash
Youku earlier today pointed out that it too has licensed the TV show from the Taiwanese broadcaster, Cti TV. Tudou’s first press release said it has “exclusive” rights to web-stream that popular chat show – but that can’t be true since both Youku and Baidu’s (NASDAQ:BIDU) Qiyi have purchased access to it as well. There might well be different access granted in each case, and perhaps one website has bought the rights to stream the most recent shows without any delay. Whatever the intricacies of their respective contracts, seven episodes remain at the heart of the battle, and Tudou suggests that it could claim as much as 150 million in compensation.
In Youku’s initial response, it alleges that Tudou has infringed on the copyright of at least 60 of its other licensed TV drama series.
It’s not clear if Tudou has actually filed a lawsuit against Youku yet, or just threatened to. Either way, a further response from Youku seems likely, and perhaps legal action of their own will be put into action next week – probably accompanied by evidence of its own – as was suggested this morning.
The whole tussle could become tiresome very quickly, and the two companies need to be wary of boring the populace with the ins-and-outs of all this now that it has been picked up by the Chinese press. Perhaps best for both sites to do a bit of early ‘spring cleaning’ – i.e. deleting a whole bunch of TV shows that shouldn’t be up – and then drop this whole thing before it becomes tedious. Or expensive.