Employees register their personal identity information in their real names from ** account, use the resources provided by the company to shoot ** to promote the company, and continue to use the account after they leave the company, for which the company claims the right to use the account. How did the court determine this?
Recently, the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court (hereinafter referred to as the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court) heard a case of dispute over the right to use an account, and finally found in the second instance that the employee's registration and operation of the account were both professional acts, and that the employee and the account value did not constitute an inseparable personal attribute relationship, so the judgment rejected the appeal, and the right to use the account involved in the case belonged to the company, and the employee needed to cooperate with the company to complete the account transfer procedures.
Li Lin is an employee of Fresh Fruit Company, and as a senior director of planning, her main job is product promotion. In order to promote products more innovatively and efficiently, Li Lin decided to take the "fast train" of the Internet.
March 2018.
Li Lin used her personal information to register two new ** accounts with her real name. One is used to post her private life**, to present her personal image; For another "fresh and delicious" account, she applied to the company for resource input. After the company's permission, Li Lin established a work group chat through WeChat, and organized other staff to discuss topic selection, plan copywriting, and allocate company resources in the group chat.
It started in April of the same year.
The "fresh and delicious" account released a series of ** under the operation of the team, most of the content is a simple lazy fresh food production tutorial, these ** are filmed in the company, which does not appear Li Lin's personal image, but the team members take turns to wear masks to appear, **The fresh style and healthy content soon attracted a group of fixed "fans". The team diverted traffic to the company's official account by locating it in the account and leaving comments to promote the company's products.
More than a year later. Li Lin terminated the labor relationship with the company, and the company asked Li Lin to complete the handover of the operation of the "Fresh and Delicious" account. Although Li Lin said in the social ** after leaving the job that he would return the account to the company, he did not actually fulfill it, but changed the name of the account and posted other types of ** in the account. After losing the account operated by the team, the number of "fans", ** communication, and like rate have all dropped significantly, and the value of the account has been devalued. As a result, Xianguo Company filed a lawsuit with the court, requesting the court to confirm that the right to use the account belonged to the company.
The idea of the account involved in the shooting of ** was jointly conceived by the employees of the fresh fruit company, and the raw materials required for the filming of ** were provided by the company, and most of the content filmed was the production of fresh food, which was related to the company's main business. Although the account involved in the case was registered in Li Lin's personal name, as of Li Lin's resignation, the ** content created by Li Lin was not created by Li Lin alone. The company is also fully aware of the account, and the account is also included in the management of the company's visual department. Based on factors such as the establishment, content, resources and management of the account, it is determined that the account should be the result of labor jointly created by the company's employees. Therefore, it was decided that the right to use the account belonged to Fresh Fruit Company.
Li Lin was dissatisfied with the first-instance verdict and appealed to the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court.
Li Lin appealed, claiming that the account involved in the case was registered with personal identity information in real name, and was actually controlled by himself with a password, and the operation of the account was determined by him independently, not the result of his work, and the company had no legal basis for claiming rights to the account.
The focus of the dispute in this case is:
Is Li Lin's registration of an account an act of duty?
Is the account value generated by completing work tasks?
Is Li Lin's personal attributes inseparable from the account?
First of all
The ** content published by the account involved in the case is the production of fresh food, which is related to the commodity operation of the fresh fruit company. Li Lin led the operation of the account through WeCom, and also got the cooperation of other employees. Therefore, although the company did not entrust Li Lin to register an account in advance, Li Lin's purpose was to innovate and expand her own work, and use the account for the company's product promotion, and she was also approved by the company's internal permission after registration. Therefore, Li Lin's registration of the account involved in the case is an act of duty that has been posthumously recognized by the company. And judging from the content published by the two accounts registered by Li Lin, there are obvious differences from the beginning of registration, which clearly reflects the different positioning and planning of the account involved in the case and its private life account.
Secondly
The number of "followers" of the account involved in the case gradually increased during the release process. The ** published by the account is completed by the company's team members, and the content released needs to be discussed collectively, not by Li Lin's personal decision, nor for Li Lin's personal interests. The value of the account forms an inseparable whole with the ** it publishes, and the value of the account ** is the result of the collective creation of the worker in the work.
Third
The account involved in the case used Li Lin's personal information for real-name registration, but it was actually operated and managed by the company for a long time. The value of the account comes from fresh food**, and Li Lin's image has never been directly shown in this part of the content, and users cannot establish their personal attention to Li Lin from the **content. After the account was separated from the company's team, the number of "fans", the number of "fans", the spread of **, and the like rate dropped significantly, resulting in a serious depreciation of value. It can be seen that the generation of account value depends on the company's team production. Therefore, there is no inseparable personal attribute relationship between the account value and Li Lin, and it can be determined that the right to use the account belongs to the real value-creating entity, that is, Fresh Fruit Company. At the same time, in order to facilitate follow-up enforcement and avoid derivative disputes, Li Lin should promptly clear the personal information in the account to create conditions for the smooth transfer of the right to use the account.
In the second instance, both parties unanimously confirmed that if the court determined that the right to use the account belonged to the company, it requested that the registration and name change matters be handled together to avoid subsequent disputes.
In summary
The Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court rejected the appeal and ruled that the right to use the account involved in the case belonged to the company, and Li Lin needed to cooperate with the company to change the registration subject information of the account involved in the case to the company's name.
The above names and company names are pseudonyms).
*: Shanghai No. 1 Middle Court***
Editor: Chang Yuewang.