The copyright infringement verdict between Qunar and Ctrip

Qunar.com has expressed disappointment over the decision handed down on January 6th by Beijing’s Haidian District People’s Court.

“While Qunar follows the principles and nature of search engines, in this specific case of the partial display and linking back to limited content on Ctrip’s website, Qunar was deemed to have infringed Chinese copyright law,” stated the travel meta-search engine.

“The action brought by Ctrip to try to limit Qunar’s search parameters is seen in the broader context of the growing success of Qunar, which has seen traffic to its site increase seven-fold in the last year. The suit pertains to the crawl, partial display and link to user-generated comments for hotels that reside in full on Ctrip. Visitors to Qunar are taken to the Ctrip site to view the complete user comment.”

The court ruled that Qunar.com should stop its infringement activities, pay damages of RMB 1,000 to Ctrip.com and make an apology lasting for 24 hours on the front page of its website. This decision by the district court will have no material impact on Qunar nor it’s future plans.

“Qunar is considering the judgment and will decide on the appropriate course of action in the best interests of its shareholders, clients and users.”

The story of this event

In April 2008, Ctrip.com found that Qunar.com was copying commented articles from Ctrip.com in its hotel area. Ctrip.com said that it had been encouraging its members to publish comments on hotels and these comments were arranged by Ctrip.com, which cost a lot of time and energy. These comments had become the important reference and standards for members’ booking of hotels and were precious information resources of Ctrip.com.

Goeshare’s opinions:

money:Considering qunar is a growing but small company and Ctrip is a famous Listed Company,i think this event is just a kind of speculation in order to be focused on.You know,a small company always need this change to improve itsvisibility.

Mic:I can’t agree more.As we all know,Qunar is just a small company but a growing rapidly company.Through this kind of measure,it is very easy to achieve its goal.You know,this behavour of copyright infringement verdict won’t be punished seriously in China.

From my site:Goeshare