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China’s top basketball league slaps streaming video giant Bilibili with copyright lawsuit, US$60.12 million in compensation

  • The Chinese Basketball Association accused Bilibili of copyright infringement for the unauthorised streaming of games during its 2019-2020 season
  • Bilibili was also accused of violating the country’s Anti-Unfair Competition Law

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Apart from copyright infringement, the Chinese Basketball Association also accused Bilibili of violating the country’s Anti-Unfair Competition Law. Photo: Shutterstock
Ann Cao
Streaming video services giant Bilibili has been slapped with a lawsuit by the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), which is demanding 406 million yuan (US$60.12 million) in legal compensation, for the unauthorised online broadcast of its games.

The corporate entity behind the CBA accused Bilibili of copyright infringement for streaming without permission the professional basketball league’s games during its 2019-2020 season, according to the legal filing released by the Beijing High People’s Court earlier this month.

Shanghai-based Bilibili set up specialised tabs, channels and rankings on its website to host CBA-related content, which is a “direct and deliberate infringement”, the Beijing court’s filing said. It indicated that Bilibili convinced video bloggers to upload CBA games through various schemes related to their creative activities on the streaming platform, which abetted infringement of the league’s copyright.

Those acts led to the appearance of 281 full videos and 416 highlight clips of CBA games during the 2019-2020 season on Bilibili’s website. The CBA also accused Bilibili of violating the country’s Anti-Unfair Competition Law because it gained a competitive advantage in the market through the unauthorised broadcast of sports events.
Beijing Shougang player Jeremy Lin Shu-how, centre, takes a jump shot in a game against the Guangdong Dongguan Bank team on December 1, 2019, during the Chinese Basketball Association’s 2019-2020 regular season. Photo: Xinhua
Beijing Shougang player Jeremy Lin Shu-how, centre, takes a jump shot in a game against the Guangdong Dongguan Bank team on December 1, 2019, during the Chinese Basketball Association’s 2019-2020 regular season. Photo: Xinhua

Bilibili was an authorised streamer of CBA games during the league’s 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 seasons.

The rights for streaming the CBA’s 2019-2020 season, however, went to China Mobile subsidiary Migu Video, Tencent Holdings-owned streaming platform Tencent Video and Alibaba Group Holding’s Youku, according to the court filing and Chinese media reports. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
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