Faced with plagiarism, Chicken Dictionary chose to protect its rights through legal means. However, the process of safeguarding rights was exceptionally difficult and costly.

Original @ New Entropy

Chicken Dictionary lost the second trial against Sina Weibo for infringement!

Recently, the official account of Chicken Dictionary released a video stating that after three years of litigation, the result of the second trial was announced, and they lost. The judgment held that it could not be determined that the content of Chicken Dictionary had ever appeared in the defendant's product.

It is understood that Chicken Dictionary, founded in 2017, is an APP primarily focused on explaining internet slang. By opening the official webpage or APP of Chicken Dictionary and entering an unfamiliar word, a concise and clear explanation will pop up, helping users deeply understand and grasp the meaning of these words.

Since the prevalence of internet slang, Chicken Dictionary has quickly become an internet celebrity APP due to its unique functional positioning. According to a May 2020 report by The Paper, the daily active users of Chicken Dictionary APP were approximately 200,000, with the total number of registered users exceeding one million. However, starting from January 16, 2023, all clients of Chicken Dictionary, including its App, website, and mini-programs, suddenly ceased services.

In 2021, Huang Yufan, the founder of Chicken Dictionary, publicly revealed that the international version of Weibo had stolen content from Chicken Dictionary and attempted to cover up its infringement by tampering with the release dates of entries on the Weibo platform. This all began when Chicken Dictionary staff discovered a section named "Meme Encyclopedia" on the international version of Weibo, with some content directly plagiarized from Chicken Dictionary.

According to Huang Yufan, as of June 2, 2021, there were nearly 30,000 entries in "Meme Encyclopedia," with over 20,000 directly copied and pasted from the Chicken Dictionary APP.

A video provided by Huang Yufan to Red Star Capital Bureau shows the word "Chicken Dictionary" clearly visible in the bottom left corner of an image used by Sina Video. Huang Yufan also stated that content sourced from Baidu Encyclopedia was clearly labeled with its source, but the over 20,000 entries copied from Chicken Dictionary did not mention their origin.

In June 2021, "Chicken Dictionary" filed a lawsuit with the Haidian District People's Court in Beijing, requesting that the court order Weibo to cease infringement, issue a public apology, pay compensation of 10 million yuan, and bear the costs of notarization and legal fees. The court officially filed the case at the end of August of the same year.

Notably, Huang Yufan, the founder of Chicken Dictionary, mentioned that shortly after the case was filed, Weibo responded to the complaint and relevant evidence by claiming that Chicken Dictionary had inserted fake data into the Weibo APP to falsify evidence and, on this pretext, refused to cooperate with the court's investigation.

At that time, Weibo responded to a reporter from China Intellectual Property News that the company did have a legal dispute with the company that owns Chicken Dictionary regarding a section of the international version of Weibo that had been discontinued.

In 2022, the official WeChat public account of Chicken Dictionary posted an article stating that in the year following the lawsuit, they had submitted additional evidence to the court. However, despite such conclusive evidence, Weibo continued to deny its infringement and distort the facts. Not only did Weibo deny the evidence, but it also claimed that the nearly 30,000 images could have been uploaded by anyone and were not related to them. Additionally, Weibo maliciously reported the notary and attempted to revoke the notarization of Chicken Dictionary by reporting the notary office to the Justice Bureau on the grounds of non-compliance with notary procedures. Weibo also attempted to silence criticism by requesting a closed trial and verdict on the grounds that it might involve business secrets.

It is worth mentioning that after Chicken Dictionary lost the first trial against Sina Weibo in 2023, a user claiming to be a lawyer suggested under a related video posted by Chicken Dictionary that, based solely on the video content, the uploader had been discussing the defendant's defense without mentioning the first-instance court's findings, which had little legal significance. The user advised that preparations for the second trial should focus on the factual findings and applicable laws of the first-instance judgment, and offered to help review the desensitized judgment. However, the official account did not disclose the desensitized judgment.

After the first trial, a staff member of Chicken Dictionary released a video stating that there had been many users of the APP at the time, and if it weren't for those users witnessing the content being copied, the future truth would have been distorted, with a small startup company being accused of greedily targeting a large company for financial gain.

At that time, founder Huang Yufan stated that he would continue to appeal and had already submitted materials to the second-instance court, awaiting the final verdict, though he admitted to having "slim hopes." Recent videos released by Chicken Dictionary show that they also lost the second trial.

In 2021, Huang Yufan told Zhengguan News that the process of litigation was extremely costly. Besides the more than 110,000 yuan spent on notarization, there were nearly 300,000 yuan in legal fees. With other expenses, Chicken Dictionary spent nearly 500,000 yuan in less than a month. The evidence for the lawsuit filled a 28-inch suitcase.

Currently, Chicken Dictionary has gradually transformed into a "video marketing" platform relying on Bilibili. The official account frequently updates entertaining videos and has 674,000 followers. The video containing the results of the second trial has received 410,000 views. The homepage states that they hope to receive advertisements and provides contact information.