Chongqing Court Recognizes Museum's Unauthorized Use of Contest Artwork Constitutes Copyright Infringement
Published 12 December 2025
Fei Dang
According to a report published by the China Intellectual Property News on December 10, 2025, the Yuzhong District People's Court of Chongqing Municipality (“the Court”) recognized that a museum infringed copyright by using an art contest work without permission and ordered the museum to compensate the copyright holder for economic losses and reasonable expenses totaling 20,000 yuan. The judgment has now taken effect.
Case Introduction
The plaintiff in this case submitted 20 postcard designs to the defendant museum in 2019 to participate in its cultural and creative design competition, winning an Excellence Award and a post-tax prize of 400 yuan. It is worth noting that the defendant's competition announcement stated it would commercialize the competition outcomes. It is also reported that the defendant's registration form included a “declaration and commitment” clause asserting full intellectual property rights over all submissions, which included all rights in terms of production, sales, exhibition, and so on, while baring any unauthorized use by third parties.
In October 2022, the plaintiff discovered that certain designs from his submitted artwork had been reproduced into cultural and creative products such as refrigerator magnets and sold in the defendant's cultural and creative store. Accordingly, the plaintiff brought the defendant to court, claiming that the declaration and commitment clause regarding the ownership of the submitted artwork's copyright in the registration form was invalid as a standard clause. The plaintiff further claimed that the defendant's unauthorized use of the artwork for profit without attribution and compensation constituted copyright infringement, for which the defendant should bear liability.The defendant argued that the plaintiff's submission of the work and signature on the registration form constituted acceptance of the terms regarding the copyright ownership of submitted artworks as stated in the competition announcement and registration form. It meant that the plaintiff had waived its copyright over the submitted works, with copyright ownership of the relevant artworks belonging to the defendant. Therefore, the defendant's development of cultural and creative products based on these works had not constituted infringement. In addition, according to the China Intellectual Property News, the defendant had apologized to the plaintiff in court for failing to credit the plaintiff in the cultural and creative works.
Upon trial, the Court determined that the “declaration and commitment” clause above constituted a standard clause provided by the defendant, and that “all provisions beyond the exercise of exhibition and publicity rights for winning entries shall be deemed invalid” based on the following analysis: 1) The clause stipulating that all intellectual property rights of submitted entries belong to the defendant not only binded all participants but also indiscriminately restricted non-winning authors from exercising their copyrights; 2) The prize money paid by the defendant for winning entries varied by tier, and such amounts constituted payment for winning the competition rather than consideration for acquiring copyright in the submitted works; 3) The plaintiff's purpose and expectation in participating did not align with the defendant's objective of directly acquiring copyright in the submitted works for commercial development; 4) Competition organizers typically may use submitted works free of charge within a specific scope of purpose.
In addition, the Court considered that the moral rights and economic rights of the work in question belong to the plaintiff on the grounds that the former are based on the exclusive nature of moral rights, while the latter stem from the absence of a copyright assignment agreement between the plaintiff and defendant regarding the contested entry. Accordingly, as reported, the Court determined that the defendant “directly engaged in commercial exploitation of the work in question without authorization by producing and publicly selling cultural and creative products, which clearly exceeded the scope of fair use, such as exhibition and publicity, thereby infringing upon the plaintiff's copyright.”
In terms of liability for the infringement, the Court determined that there was no need to order the defendant to issue a written apology for the following reasons: 1) There was no evidence indicating that crediting the pattern designer on the relevant cultural and creative products constituted an industry practice; thus the defendant did not commit gross negligence, 2) The plaintiff failed to prove that the defendant's actions caused damage to his reputation, 3) The defendant had apologized to the plaintiff during the trial. However, after comprehensively considering “the artistic and commercial value of the disputed artwork, the defendant's subjective fault, the type of the allegedly infringing products, and the reasonable costs incurred by the plaintiff in gathering evidence,” the court awarded the plaintiff 20,000 yuan in compensation for economic losses and reasonable expenses at its discretion.
According to reports, the plaintiff appealed the first-instance judgment, but the appellate court dismissed the appeal and upheld the original ruling. The judgment has now taken effect.
Case Analysis
This case primarily concerns the ownership of copyright in the submitted works of a competition and the validity of standard contract terms.
Regarding the attribution of copyright, Article 11 of the Copyright Law stipulates, “Unless otherwise provided by this Law, the copyright in a work shall belong to its author. The author of a work is a natural person who creates the work. Where a work is created under the auspices of, representing the will, and under the responsibility of a legal person or unincorporated organization, such a legal person or unincorporated organization shall be deemed the author of the work. ”
In addition, Article 10 of the Copyright Law provides the scope of the copyright, that is “Copyright includes the following moral rights and economic rights: (1) the right of publication, that is, the right to decide whether to make a work available to the public; (2) the right of authorship, that is, the right to claim authorship, and to have the author's name mentioned in connection with the work; (3) the right of alteration, that is, the right to alter or authorize others to alter one's work; (4) the right of integrity, that is, the right to protect one's work against distortion and mutilation; (5) the right of reproduction, that is, the right to produce one or more copies of a work by printing, photocopying, rubbing, sound recording, video recording, ripping, duplicating a photographic work, digitizing, or by other means; (6) the right of distribution, that is, the right to provide the original copy or reproduced copies of a work to the public by sale or donation; (7) the right of rental, that is, the right to non-gratuitously permit others to temporarily use an audiovisual work, or the original or copies of a computer software, except where the software itself is not the main object of the lease; (8) the right of exhibition, that is, the right to publicly display the original copy or reproduced copies of a work of fine arts or of a photographic work; (9) the right of performance, that is, the right to publicly perform a work, and to publicly communicate the performance of a work by various means; (10) the right of projection, that is, the right to publicly reproduce works of fine arts, photographic works, audiovisual works, or other works, by a projector, slide projector or any other technical equipment; (11) the right of broadcasting, that is, the right to publicly disseminate or rebroadcast works by wire or by wireless means, and to disseminate broadcast works to the public by loudspeaker or any other similar instruments for transmitting signs, sounds or images, but excluding the right mentioned in Subparagraph (12) of this paragraph; (12) the right of communication through information network, that is, the right to make a work available to the public by wire or by wireless means, so that the public may have access to the work at time and place chosen by them; (13) the right of cinematography, that is, the right to fix a work on the medium by producing an audiovisual work; (14) the right of adaptation, that is, the right to modify a work to create a new one with originality; (15) the right of translation, that is, the right to transform the work from one language into another language; (16) the right of compilation, that is, the right to compile, by selection or arrangement, the works or fragments of works into a new work; and (17) other rights which shall be enjoyed by the copyright owners. Copyright owners may authorize others to exercise the rights provided in Subparagraphs (5) to (17) of the preceding paragraph and receive remuneration in accordance with the agreements or the relevant provisions of this Law. Copyright owners may transfer, wholly or in part, the rights provided in Subparagraphs (5) to (17) of the first paragraph of this Article and receive remuneration in accordance with the agreements or the relevant provisions of this Law.”
Among them, the items 1st to 4th listed above, which are the right of publication, the right of authorship, the right of alteration, and the right of integrity of the work, constitute the moral rights, and they are non-transferable, enjoy perpetual protection, and are exclusive and inalienable. Conversely, the items 5th to 17th listed above, such as the right of reproduction, the right of distribution, and the right of rental, constitute economic rights, and they may be transferred or licensed by the rights holder to generate economic benefits, and the term of protection for these rights extends for the author's lifetime plus 50 years.
In this case, as the creator of the submitted entries in question, the plaintiff should rightfully hold copyright over such works in accordance with the aforementioned Copyright Law provisions. Although the defendant stipulated in the “declaration and commitment” clause of its registration form that all intellectual property rights of submitted entries belong to the defendant and that it possesses “all rights to redesign, produce, sell, display, publish, promote, etc., all submitted entries, and holds all rights to display, promote, etc., all winning entries,” such clauses not only clearly violate the Copyright Law's provisions regarding the non-transferability and exclusive nature of moral rights but also constitute standard form clauses. Consequently, the court ruled that “all provisions beyond the exercise of exhibition and publicity rights for winning entries shall be deemed invalid.”
In terms of the standard form clause, Article 496 of the Civil Code defines it as “a clause formulated in advance by a party for repeated use which has not been negotiated with the other party when concluding the contract. Upon concluding a contract, where a standard clause is used, the party providing the standard clause shall determine the parties’ rights and obligations in compliance with the principle of fairness, and shall, in a reasonable manner, call the other party’s attention to the clause concerning the other party’s major interests and concerns, such as a clause that exempts or alleviates the liability of the party providing the standard clause, and give explanations of such clause upon request of the other party. Where the party providing the standard clause fails to perform the aforementioned obligation of calling attention or giving explanations, thus resulting in the other party’s failure to pay attention to or understand the clause concerning its major interests and concerns, the other party may claim that such clause does not become part of the contract.” Article 497 of the Civil Code provides the circumstances of a void standard clause including but not limited to “… (2) the party providing the standard clause unreasonably exempts or alleviates itself from liability, impose heavier liability on the other party, or restricts the main rights of the other party; or (3) the party providing the standard clause deprives the other party of its main rights.” In addition, “where a dispute arises over the understanding of a standard clause, the clause shall be interpreted in accordance with its common understanding. Where there are two or more interpretations of a standard clause, the clause shall be interpreted against the party providing the standard clause. …”In this case, the defendant directly stipulated in its registration form that the copyright of the submitted works would belong to it but failed to reasonably negotiate with the original authors regarding the transfer of economic rights related to the works (such as the right of reproduction and distribution) and pay compensation. Therefore, when the plaintiff and defendant had a dispute regarding the copyright ownership of the submitted works stipulated in the “declaration and commitment” clause, the Court determined that this clause constituted a standard form clause and interpreted it unfavorably to the party providing the standard form. Specifically, the Court ruled that this clause could not be regarded as an agreement between the plaintiff and defendant concerning the transfer of the economic rights to the submitted works. Both the moral rights and economic rights to the submitted works in question remained with the plaintiff. The standard clause stating “all other content beyond the exercise of exhibition and publicity rights for award-winning works shall be deemed invalid” was thus invalidated.
In conclusion, this case holds significant reference value in determining the copyright ownership of submitted works in a competition. In principle, the copyright of submitted works should belong to the creator (author) themselves. If the competition organizer wishes to obtain certain copyrights of the submitted works (such as the right of reproduction or distribution), they must enter into explicit and lawful agreements with the author and pay corresponding compensation as appropriate. In cases like this one, where competition announcements or registration forms directly stipulate that copyright of submitted works automatically belongs to the organizer, such clauses are highly likely to be deemed standard form clauses by courts. They will be subject to strict scrutiny for violating the Copyright Law's provisions on the exclusivity of moral rights and for depriving authors of their primary rights over their works without paying reasonable compensation when involving economic rights.