Written by: Li Xinyi
A ruling from the Hangzhou Internet Court, in the "Fat Tiger Gets a Vaccine" NFT infringement case, clearly tells us: Decentralization does not mean no responsibility; behind the technology, there are still clear legal boundaries.
Many people think that they are merely developing technology, building platforms, or providing tools, and are not directly involved in infringement, so they should be fine. But this ruling clearly points out: Technology itself cannot be used as a "shield" for infringement; if used improperly, it can still be illegal.
In this article, we will discuss a key but often overlooked concept: "Technical Circumvention of Copyright Infringement".
- What is it?
- How can ordinary people avoid it?
- And how do we find a balance between innovation and compliance?
Technical Circumvention Infringement: The Fatal Shortcut Around "Digital Locks"
In the Web3 and digital creation fields, there is a type of infringement that is often underestimated: It is not directly stealing content, but rather bypassing the "digital locks" that protect content, such as cracking encryption, tampering with licensing agreements, or providing cracking tools. Although this type of action seems indirect, its harm is greater—it's like making a master key, opening the door for large-scale infringement.
These "locks" mainly include two types:
- Access Control Measures: Such as paywalls, membership verification, which determine "if you can enter the door";
- Copyright Protection Measures: Such as anti-copying watermarks, DRM systems, which restrict "what you can do after entering".
And circumvention behaviors are also divided into two categories:
- Direct Circumvention: Doing the cracking yourself, equivalent to "making the key yourself";
- Indirect Circumvention: Making or providing cracking tools, equivalent to "opening a master key factory".
The reason the law severely cracks down on such behavior is that it makes infringement "batch-processed": one cracking tool can potentially be used by thousands of people, severely disrupting the copyright order and the creative ecosystem.
Web3's "Circumvention Minefield": When Technical Bypass Meets the Immutable Chain
After understanding the basic concepts, let's look at its mutation in the Web3 context.
- Broader Circumvention Targets: Previously, it was cracking a specific software; now, it might be attacking a blockchain protocol that verifies the copyright of AI training data, or tampering with the smart contract logic that determines NFT access permissions. The lock has become a virtual consensus.
- More Complex Actors: For example, a developer open-sources a script that bypasses a platform's technical protection measures on GitHub, receives funding through a DAO, and is executed automatically by global anonymous nodes. The involved parties have now broken through geographical limitations—developer, the DAO that passed the vote, all executing nodes...
- Infringement Consequences Are Recorded: On the traditional internet, infringing content can be deleted. But in Web3, common legal orders like "cease infringement" or "eliminate the effects" become technically difficult to enforce. The state of infringement may be permanently locked, and the rights holder's damages continue to occur, irreversible.
- The Law Has Clear Red Lines: According to the "Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Infringement of Intellectual Property Rights", providing tools or services specifically designed to circumvent copyright protection measures, if serious, can constitute a criminal offense. Project parties that touch this will directly face legal sanctions; platform parties cannot claim "technology neutrality" to avoid liability and need to undertake preliminary review obligations, otherwise they may bear joint liability.
Establishing Compliance Guidelines: How to Move Forward Safely in the Web3 Era
Facing the legal risks brought by technical circumvention, compliance is no longer an "option" but a "lifeline" for the survival and development of Web3 projects. True compliance should be a collaborative effort between law, technology, and community governance:
- From "Passive Exemption" to "Active Governance": For platforms with substantive control, the role of lawyers has shifted from seeking "safe harbor" protection to assisting in establishing a copyright governance system that matches their capabilities, transforming legal obligations into executable monitoring lists, such as smart contract audit mechanisms, high-risk content monitoring, etc.
- Compliance Must "Intervene Early": Professional legal advice should be introduced in the early stages, such as token model design and technical solution selection, to prevent circumvention infringement risks from the root. If problems are already faced, professional defense is needed to clarify the boundary between "technological exploration" and "malicious illegality".
- Professional Support is Long-Term Guarantee: In the Web3 field where rules are still evolving, compliance construction requires teams that understand both technology and the law. If you or your project face related risks or need to build a compliance framework, it is recommended to contact professional teams like Mankun Lawyers for full-cycle escorting from model design to risk response.
Only by embedding a compliance awareness into the project's DNA and using a forward-looking architecture to address potential risks can we go further in the balance between innovation and safety.
