What kind of blockchain deposit has legal effect? Hangzhou Internet Court gives four elements

In the "Thirteen Typical Cases of Intellectual Property Rights in 2018" issued by the Hangzhou Internet Court on April 25, a case related to the electronic deposit of blockchain was selected. This is the first time in the country that the blockchain electronic deposit certificate The legal validity of the case.

In the case, the plaintiff Hangzhou Huatai Yi Media Culture Media Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Huatai Yi Media”) in order to prove that the defendant Shenzhen Daotong Technology Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Daotong Technology”) published the copyright of the plaintiff on its website. Related works, using the third-party blockchain deposit certificate platform, the automatic crawling of the infringing webpage and the source code identification of the infringing page, and packaging and compressing the two contents and the call log, and calculating the hash value into the Factom blockchain and bitcoin blockchain. The plaintiff Huatai Media believes that the defendant Datong Technology has infringed the right to disseminate information on its own works. In the end, the Hangzhou Internet Court approved the legal efficiency of the blockchain electronic evidence provided by Huatai Media, and based on this, made a judgment on the economic loss of Huatai Media.

“The case analysis should be carried out in an open and neutral manner.” Hangzhou Internet Court wrote in the reason for the selection that electronic data stored in the form of blockchain and other technical means must be combined with blockchain technology for data storage. Based on technical principles, it is based on the legal standards for electronic evidence review.

In addition, the Hangzhou Internet Court has also proposed four elements of review to specifically determine what kind of blockchain electronic deposits have legal effect.

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The first thing to review is the authenticity of the source of electronic evidence.

For example, in the above case, the court considered that the third-party depository platform was deployed in the general Alibaba Cloud server and was recognized by the industry for the first-level website security certification. Except for the contrary evidence, the website should be deemed to have A secure environment for electronic data generation. From a technical point of view, the puppeteer and curl programs automatically invoked by the escrow platform for web crawling and source code recognition of the target link are also public and universal, and a series of operations are performed according to a preset procedure. The computer is automatically completed, and the whole process of forensics and evidence is less likely to be tampered with, so the generated electronic data source is highly reliable.

The second thing to review is the reliability of electronic data storage.

As a kind of decentralized database, blockchain is a series of data blocks generated by cryptography. Each data block contains information about network transactions, which is used to verify the validity of its information (anti-counterfeiting). And generate the next block, which has the characteristics of being difficult to tamper with and delete. Specifically, a node on the blockchain network packs the data generated in one time period to form a first block, and synchronizes the block to the entire blockchain network, and the other nodes verify the received block and Add to. Other nodes are also added in the same way to form a blockchain with blocks connected to the block. Therefore, it is difficult to modify the data in the blockchain unless the extreme value is used. The Hangzhou Internet Court believes that blockchain is a relatively reliable technology that keeps content intact.

The third is to review the integrity of the electronic data content.

The Hangzhou Internet Court pointed out that the blockchain technology itself can only ensure the integrity of the electronic data that has been uploaded into the blockchain. When multiple blockchains are involved, it is very important to examine whether the data stored in each blockchain is one-to-one. important. On the one hand, on the one hand, it is necessary to check the value of the hash value, etc., to confirm that the electronic data that has been initially wounded is the electronic data corresponding to the infringing document involved, and the data is intact without modification; on the other hand, it is also necessary to examine the blockchain. Corresponding electronic data related to the case is consistent. For example, in the above case, the Hangzhou Internet Court verified the storage contents of the FACTOM blockchain, the CHAIN ​​ID, the block height, and the like in the bitcoin blockchain. After determining the values, the blockchain was created. The content stored in the file is complete and unmodified.

Finally, we must review the relevance of electronic evidence.

The Hangzhou Internet Court held that the electronic evidence formed by the automatic crawling of the third-party depository platform clearly reflects the source, generation and transmission path of electronic data, and the relationship between the information contained in it and other evidence, and the blockchain. The logical relationship of the time stamp information reflected by the deposit certificate can further confirm the authenticity of the electronic data. In the above case, the time difference between the start and completion of the crawl and the time difference between the data generation and uploading to the blockchain reflected by the automatic crawling program are within a few seconds, which is recognized as the reliability of the proof and deposit method. Thus, a relatively complete chain is formed, and the legal effect of electronic evidence is finally determined.

In summary, the Hangzhou Internet Court held that the blockchain electronic evidence in the case can effectively prove the infringement facts, and accordingly, the judgment of Datong Science and Technology to compensate Huatai Media for economic losses. After the verdict was pronounced, neither party filed an appeal and the case was in force.

Source: Sohu Technology

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