[Significance]

In the Internet era, electronic evidence has been enormously presented. The newly emerged information technology, such as blockchain has brought a brand-new renovation to the collection and storage of electronic evidence. At the same time, it is urgent to clarify the rules examining the effectiveness of electronic evidence. This case is the first one in China to determine the legal effect of the electronic evidence stored by blockchain, providing a review method for examination and admission of this new type of electronic evidence, detailing the consideration factors and clarifying the adjudication criteria. This case could promote the in-depth integration of blockchain technology and judiciary process by clarifying the rules of preservation and storage of blockchain evidence, which is of considerable significance to the improvement of the internet-related litigation rules in the information age.

[Case Summary]

The plaintiff, Hangzhou Huatai Media Culture Media Co., Ltd (“Huatai”),alleged that the defendant’s, Shenzhen Daotong Technology Development Co., Ltd(“Daotong”), act of publishing the works of which Huatai had the copyright on the website without authorization infringed the plaintiff’s right of dissemination over information networks. Huatai collected evidence of infringement through the third-party evidence-storage platform, uploaded the relevant data as a hash value to the bitcoin blockchain and Factom blockchain, based on which Huatai requested Daotong to bear the liability of infringement.

[Decision]

The court held in this case that blockchain technology, based on its characteristics of distributed storage, tamper-proof mechanism and traceability, has advantages in the fixation, preservation and extraction of electronic evidence, but the court shall still determine the authenticity of electronic evidence stored on the blockchain according to certain standards and procedures. In this case, the electronic evidence data stored in the blockchain has a clear source, its generation and transmission path is definite and clear, and it can be mutually verified with the screenshots of web pages, source code information and call logs. Therefore, the generated electronic data is reliable.

On June 27, 2018, Hangzhou Internet Court made a judgment, which ordered the defendant to pay RMB 4,000 yuan to the plaintiff as the compensation for the economic loss. After the first instance judgment of the case was pronounced and served, neither the plaintiff nor the defendant filed an appeal, and the judgment has been effective.