Photo/Shetuwang

May 10 (NBD) -- On Wednesday (May 8), a court in Beijing ruled that author Zhou Jing shall pay 136,500 yuan (20,100 U.S. dollars) in compensation to one of the plaintiffs in a series of lawsuits for plagiarism found in her novel.

Two years ago, 12 authors, 60 screenwriters, 9 lawyers, and nearly 100 volunteers brought the plagiarism case to court, accusing Zhou Jing, an online novelist, of copying over 200 works in her novel The Princess Weiyoung.

A mere 9 of 294 chapters in the novel were original, news outlet Beijing Daily previously reported citing relevant research.

This was seen as the biggest copyright infringement case in terms of the plagiarism proportion found in one work and the number of plaintiffs claiming a right.

"It's too brazen (of her) to copy this much, which has never happened before," lamented screenwriter Yu Fei in an interview with National Business Daily (NBD). "Such action must be stopped, otherwise no one would be willing to be devoted to creation but merely piece together what's taken from others' works, " worried Yu.

NBD noticed that to cover the litigation cost, Yu and his peer Wang Hailin led three rounds of crowd-funding, raising a total of over 210,000 yuan from 60 screenwriters.

Zhou Jing's The Princess Weiyoung was firstly published online and came under fire almost immediately from readers who claimed the novel's plot, wording and characterization were similar to other works.

The physical books of the same name came out in 2009. And in 2015, the novel was adapted to a TV series, which brought the copyright dispute again under spotlight.

Hearing the court ruling, most online users deemed a 20,100-U.S. dollar compensation against Zhou as too light a punishment for the novelist's grave piracy.

With this regard, Yu said to NBD it's not the amount of compensation, but the mainstream voices of legislation - The Princess Weiyoung is a wrongful plagiarism - that matters.

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn