A Chinese court has ruled that documents authenticated with blockchain technology can be used as evidence in a copyright infringement case.
In its decision, the Hangzhou Internet Court, which specializes in Internet-related cases, said “it should maintain an open and neutral stance on using blockchain to analyze individual cases,” a Chinese law firm has confirmed citing an official judgment.
Part of the judgment reads:
"The court thinks it should maintain an open and neutral stance on using blockchain to analyze individual cases. We can't exclude it just because it's a complex technology. Nor can we lower the standard just because it is tamper-proof and traceable. ... In this case, the usage of a third-party blockchain platform that is reliable without conflict of interests provides the legal ground for proving the intellectual infringement."
The decision was based on a copyright infringement claim Huatai Yimei, a local media company, against a Shenzhen-based technology firm. The lawsuit stated that the tech firm reprinted Huatai Yimei article in its website without their consent.
The media firm presented before the court as evidence screenshots of the alleged publication of the questioned article, as well as source codes that it had uploaded onto a third-party blockchain provider called baoquan.com. The platform is a blockchain-based evidence deposition website.
The court accepted the documents as valid evidence and ruled that the defendant is guilty of copyright infringement.
The court explained that blockchain should not be excluded as evidence simply because it is a "complex technology," and added they could be accepted on a case-by-case basis. With the acceptance of the blockchain documents as evidence, the court ruled in favor of Huatai Yimei.
Russian military embraces blockchain
This is not the first time that a government has accepted the value of blockchain for its operations.
Early this month, the defense ministry of the Russian Federation to set up a dedicated research lab to uncover and prevent hack attacks using blockchain technology. The lab to be set up in the ERA technology park will apply blockchain to enhance the government’s capabilities against cybercrimes and assaults on vital information infrastructure.
Alexey Malanov, an anti-virus expert at Kaspersky Lab, said:
"A trespasser often clears the permission log to hide traces of unauthorized access to the device. However, if the log is distributed among several devices (for example, via blockchain technology), this risk can be minimized."
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
