Jay Chou launches lawsuit against NetEase over rights infringement

(ECNS) -- Chinese singer Jay Chou launched a lawsuit against NetEase for rights infringement, which has sparked debate on Sina Weibo, a Chinese social platform, on Monday.

According to Tianyancha, a commercial query platform providing  information of entities, the case was launched by Chou and his music production company JVR Music and will be heard in a court in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, on April 17.

The dispute between Jay Chou and NetEase can date back to last July when a promotional event was held for Tianxia 3, a multiplayer online game developed by NetEase. It said that a total of 100 sets of Chou’s digital albums would be offered for free as part of the promotion.

Then the JVR Music issued a statement, saying it had not given permission for use of Chou’s music nor its concert tickets, adding that NetEase’s activities had not been officially authorized by JVR Music.

This is not the first friction between JVR Music and NetEase. In 2018, Tencent Music released a statement accusing NetEase Cloud Music of infringement for the latter continued to provide users with Chou’s music after the copyright sublicense expired on March 31, 2018.

After the exclusive copyright of music was lifted in 2021, Netease still failed to get the copyright of Chou’s music, and JVR Music chose to renew its contract with Tencent Music.

The friction between Chou and NetEase in copyright and intellectual property rights is still unresolved.