China’s Supreme Court Rules Against ByteDance in Landmark $11.3M Code Plagiarism Case

ByteDance Found Guilty of Code Plagiarism: Chinese Supreme Court Ruling Marks a Landmark Case

In a landmark legal battle spanning nearly four years, Meishe Technology has won its lawsuit against ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok and its associated applications. The case, which alleged large-scale code plagiarism across eight ByteDance products, including Douyin, CapCut, and Faceu, has reached its final verdict by China’s Supreme People’s Court.

The dispute dates back to May 2021 when Meishe discovered that Douyin’s audio and video processing functions contained large portions of code identical to Meishe’s proprietary software, Meishe SDK. Further analysis revealed that ByteDance’s other software products, including Jianying (CapCut), Volcano Engine VESDK, and others, also contained copied code. Meishe filed lawsuits in Beijing Intellectual Property Court and Beijing Higher People’s Court, citing software copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets.

In June 2023 and May 2024, lower courts ruled in Meishe’s favor, mandating that ByteDance apologize and pay damages of approximately 26.7 million yuan ($3.7 million). ByteDance appealed to the Supreme Court, which not only upheld the infringement ruling but also significantly increased the compensation amount to 82.7 million yuan ($11.3 million). The court found that ByteDance had intentionally refused to submit its source code for review, and forensic analysis confirmed unauthorized replication through decompilation techniques.

The final verdict requires ByteDance to immediately cease copyright infringement, issue a public apology, and halt trade secret violations related to Meishe’s technology.

Key Takeaways

1. ByteDance Found Guilty: The Supreme Court upheld previous rulings that ByteDance and its affiliated companies illegally copied Meishe’s software code.
2. Significant Penalties: The damages awarded increased from 26.7 million yuan to 82.7 million yuan, reflecting the seriousness of the infringement.
3. Software Copyright Strengthened: The ruling reinforces the importance of intellectual property (IP) protection in the software industry, setting a precedent for future cases.
4. Industry Implications: The case raises concerns about employee transitions between tech firms, highlighting risks of unintentional or deliberate code transfer.
5. ByteDance’s Response: The company acknowledged that a former Meishe engineer, who later joined ByteDance, reused a small portion of code, which led to the infringement. The employee has since left the company.

Deep Analysis: What This Means for the Tech Industry

This lawsuit has far-reaching consequences for the software development and tech industries, particularly in China, where intellectual property disputes are becoming increasingly common.

1. The Role of Former Employees in IP Disputes

A key element in this case was that a former Meishe engineer joined ByteDance and reused portions of his previous work. While ByteDance argued that the repeated code accounted for only 0.8% of Douyin’s total codebase, the court ruled that even this small fraction constituted a violation.

This raises broader questions: To what extent does a developer “own” the knowledge they acquire at one company? In industries like automotive and pharmaceuticals, employees routinely move between competitors, yet IP laws vary in protecting proprietary information.

2. Increasing Scrutiny on Tech Giants

ByteDance, one of the world’s most influential tech companies, now faces heightened scrutiny over its business practices. This case joins a growing list of legal battles involving intellectual property violations, data privacy concerns, and regulatory challenges. For smaller firms like Meishe, this ruling provides hope that legal protections can level the playing field against corporate giants.

3. Strengthened Copyright Protections in China

China has traditionally been seen as lenient on software copyright enforcement, but this case signals a shift. The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold and increase penalties indicates stronger enforcement of intellectual property rights, aligning China with global IP standards.

For businesses operating in China, this decision means they must ensure compliance with software copyright laws and implement stricter internal audits to prevent unauthorized code reuse.

Did You Know?

• Software Copyright vs. Algorithm Protection: While algorithms themselves cannot be copyrighted, the actual code written to implement an algorithm is protected by copyright laws. This means that while the idea behind a function can be replicated, the specific code structure cannot.
• Code Plagiarism Detection: Advanced forensic tools like code fingerprinting, lexical analysis, and function signature matching were used in this case to prove ByteDance’s unauthorized use of Meishe’s code.
• Global Precedents: Tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Apple have faced similar lawsuits over code plagiarism, making this ruling part of a global conversation on software copyright enforcement.
• Economic Impact of Copyright Infringement: According to estimates, software piracy costs the global tech industry billions of dollars annually, affecting innovation and fair competition.

Meishe’s victory against ByteDance marks one of the largest software copyright infringement cases in China’s history. The ruling sets a strong precedent for future IP disputes in the software industry, reinforcing the importance of code originality and legal compliance. As tech firms continue to expand and innovate, this case serves as a reminder that intellectual property rights are more critical than ever in maintaining fair competition in the digital age.