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In November 2013, he bought a recharge code from a Taobao store to exchange for bitcoins. Later, such bitcoin transactions in China were stopped by the People's Bank of China. Now the buyer at that time sued the seller, saying that according to the current market value, the bitcoins I bought that year are worth more than 70,000 yuan, so you should return them to me.
Today (May 22), the Hangzhou Internet Court heard the court’s first “Bitcoin” network property infringement dispute case.
Because of the special transaction method of Bitcoin, the evidence and legal relationships involved in this case have become complicated.
The plaintiff is Wu from Hangzhou. There are two defendants. One is a Shanghai technology company, which opened an online store on Taobao that provided Bitcoin exchange. The second defendant is Taobao Company.
Bitcoin is a virtual currency. Its purchase and sale back then was a bit like buying stocks. After Wu paid real money, he could get a corresponding share of Bitcoin.
That year he bought a total of 2,675 bitcoins in two installments, spending more than 20,000 yuan. The first of these two transactions was through Taobao online store just like we buy ordinary goods, and the second time, he said, he transferred the money directly to the store owner's Alipay.
In today's lawsuit, Wu sued for compensation of 76,314 yuan. Wu said that this amount was estimated based on the current market price of Bitcoin.
The plaintiff, Mr. Wu, said that he bought bitcoins at the end of 2013, but the bitcoin exchange and trading website was closed in 2014, and his Taobao store was also closed. When the above website was closed, the defendant, a Shanghai technology company, did not give any notice to the plaintiff. This "inaction" resulted in the plaintiff's purchase of bitcoins being unable to be recovered, causing huge economic losses to the plaintiff.
Then why sue Taobao?
The plaintiff believed that Bitcoin, Litecoin and other Internet virtual currencies and related commodities were banned from Taobao.com and that the defendant Taobao failed to fulfill its review obligations, resulting in the plaintiff purchasing banned commodities on the online shopping platform it operated, causing losses.
Therefore, his request was that a Shanghai technology company and Taobao bear joint and several liability for his loss of more than 70,000 yuan.
The defendant, a Shanghai technology company, made the main defense that the plaintiff purchased the recharge code on November 30, 2013, and their website posted a website suspension announcement on May 2, 2014 and was closed on May 10 of the same year.
The website was shut down based on a document jointly issued by the People's Bank of China and other departments and agencies, which stipulates that Bitcoin transactions are prohibited. Therefore, they did not infringe the plaintiff, and Bitcoin is illegal property and is not protected by law in my country. The transaction behavior is suspected of disrupting the social and economic order and damaging the public interest, so the court is requested to dismiss the plaintiff's lawsuit.
Taobao's defense is that Taobao is only a service provider that provides an information publishing platform, not a producer or seller of the goods involved in the lawsuit, and does not participate in the production, editing or recommendation of the goods involved in the lawsuit. All product information on the platform is published by users themselves. Taobao cannot control the quality, safety and legality of the goods involved in the transaction, the authenticity and accuracy of the information, and the ability of the parties to the transaction to perform their obligations under the transaction agreement. The legal consequences of the user's information release or transaction are entirely borne by the user; according to the plaintiff's application, Taobao has promptly disclosed the seller's real name, address and effective contact information to the plaintiff, fulfilled its corresponding obligations, and should not bear compensation liability; before the lawsuit, the plaintiff did not apply for return and refund through the rights protection channel created by the platform. Taobao, as an online trading platform, has fulfilled its platform obligations and should not bear joint and several liability. In summary, the court is also requested to dismiss all the plaintiff's claims in accordance with the law.
Because this is the first case, it brings up many new problems.
The court also summarized the focus of the dispute:
First, China has denied the currency status of Bitcoin in our country, but Bitcoin still has value internationally. So in this case, does Bitcoin have value, scarcity, and disposableness? Is it virtual property and protected by law?
Second, when Wu bought Bitcoin for the second time, he directly transferred the money to the online store owner’s Alipay account. Now he is suing a Shanghai technology company. Are the two entities identical?
Third, if the defendant, a Shanghai technology company, infringes upon the rights, is it reasonable for the plaintiff to claim compensation for infringement based on the transaction price of 2.675 bitcoins at the time of the lawsuit?
Fourth: whether the defendant Taobao should have proactively reviewed the links to the products involved in the case and whether it should bear joint liability for infringement;
Fifth, it has been five years since the incident. Has the plaintiff’s lawsuit exceeded the statute of limitations?
The court will pronounce a verdict on this case at a later date.
The young female judge told 24-hour reporters after the trial that Internet legal disputes often encounter various new problems, and it is good to have a state of continuous learning. (Qianjiang Evening News)
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