I can become stronger by paying salaries. I have one billion employees!

Chapter 253 Enlightenment in Longchang: I, Zhang Yiming, must find a powerful backer!

"No problem, I'll call Liu Zhiping right now." Chen Yansen smiled faintly and readily agreed.

"Thank you, Mr. Chen." Zhang Yiming breathed a sigh of relief and said with deep gratitude.

In his view, as long as the problem is actively rectified and the infringing content is quickly deleted, the issue can be resolved by paying at most one more sum of money.

After all, he had already mentally prepared himself when he was scraping content from major portal websites.

After hanging up the phone, Zhang Yiming and his legal counsel went downstairs, drove his car, and headed straight for the nearby patrol station.

On the other side, Chen Yansen put down his phone and continued to check the project data.

Zhang Yiming isn't his son, and the Lingxi Browser's copyright infringement is a fact; he merely ignited this potential problem prematurely.

How can young people understand the importance of clinging to powerful figures if they don't experience some hardship?
Fifteen minutes later, Zhang Yiming walked into the inspection station.

He thought he wouldn't be nervous, but when he stepped into the hall and saw the inspectors in uniform, his heart couldn't help but skip a beat.

"What can I do for you?" The inspector in charge of receiving visitors looked at Zhang Yiming and his accompanying legal counsel with curiosity.

"I am Zhang Yiming, the person in charge of ByteDance, here to cooperate with the investigation into the copyright infringement issue of Lingxi Browser."

Zhang Yiming explained slowly.

"Old Wang, take these two to the interrogation room, and tell Captain Zhang that the people from ByteDance are here," the inspector shouted to another colleague.

"Are you the head of ByteDance? And what about him?" Old Wang walked over and asked.

"The company's legal department," Zhang Yiming answered truthfully.

"Come with me." After saying that, Old Wang led the way to the interrogation room.

The legal team remained in place.

Although Zhang Yiming felt tightness in his chest and shortness of breath, he remained calm. He believed in Chen Yansen's abilities and did not take the complaints from companies like Tencent to heart.

A minute later, as he sat down in the chair, facing two inspectors and three copyright association staff, he couldn't help but feel flustered.

"Mr. Zhang, this is Zhang Zhanhui from the Zhongguancun Inspection Office. This is Director Li Feng from the Copyright Association. We've invited you here mainly because the Copyright Association received complaints from six companies, including Tencent, NetEase, Sohu, and Sina, that Lingxi Browser has reproduced their articles without permission, with a total of over 60 million clicks. What do you have to say about this?"

Zhang Zhanhui's expression was cold and stern as he questioned him in a deep voice.

“Captain Zhang, Director Li, Lingxi Browser is just a technical platform. It extracts summaries through web crawlers and eventually redirects back to the original website of the news. This falls under the safe harbor principle of Article 23 of the Regulations on the Protection of the Right to Disseminate Information Online, and does not constitute infringement.”

Zhang Yiming answered calmly.

"But according to technical analysis, Lingxi's servers cached a large amount of full-text information, such as this article from the Beijing Evening News, 'The Controversy Over PM2.5 Governance.' Others invested a lot of manpower and resources to collect and write news, but you just took it and used it. What's the difference between that and theft?"

Zhang Zhanhui snorted coldly.

A fleeting look of embarrassment crossed Zhang Yiming's face. He knew it wasn't fair to do this, but ByteDance had no money or resources. If it wanted to develop rapidly, it had to take unconventional approaches. Which successful entrepreneur built their business in a conventional way?

He leaned forward slightly and said sincerely, "Technically, we only store a 72-hour temporary cache, which complies with Article 5 of the Administrative Measures for the Protection of Copyright on the Internet."

Zhang Zhanhui laughed. He hadn't expected the other party to be so well-prepared. Clearly, Zhang Yiming had thoroughly understood the regulations and policies before scraping the content from various news outlets.

Li Feng from the Copyright Association raised his eyelids and said, "Lingxi earned 80 yuan in March and April by relying on infringing content and using advertising revenue sharing. This constitutes a case of huge illegal gains, punishable by a minimum of three years and a maximum of seven years. Do you understand?"

To put it bluntly, if Lingxi's behavior is defined as ordinary infringement, then things become much simpler: delete all infringing content, apologize to Tencent and other complainants, and finally pay a fine.

However, Li Feng's statement clearly suggests that he intends to categorize Lingxi as "intentionally infringing on rights for profit".

As he said, once the nature of the matter changes, so does the responsibility.

Zhang Yiming panicked and hurriedly said, "What you two say makes sense. I will go back and strengthen the review mechanism and delete all infringing content immediately to prevent this from happening again."

“Go back? You can’t go back!” Zhang Zhanhui replied indifferently.

Can not go back?

What do you mean?
Zhang Yiming's mind was buzzing. He opened his mouth, but was so nervous that he couldn't make a sound.

Zhang Zhanhui and Li Feng exchanged a glance before leaving the interrogation room, leaving Zhang Yiming in the room.

If it weren't for the joint complaint from Tencent and the three major portal websites, the Copyright Association wouldn't have taken this case on its own.

There are countless small players like ByteDance in China. Not only can they not manage them all, but even if Tencent were to sue them, they wouldn't be able to handle them all.

Usually, copyright infringement on the internet is only dealt with in a unified manner during the "Sword Net Action".

"Does the penguin really want to send someone in?"

After leaving the interrogation room, Zhang Zhanhui frowned slightly and pressed for an answer.

"Lock him up for a day to teach him a lesson, otherwise everyone will follow suit, and I'll be busy to death." Li Feng raised his eyebrows and said nonchalantly.

ByteDance's legal representative waited at the inspection station until 8 p.m., but still couldn't get a result. He asked the inspector, "When will Mr. Zhang be able to come out?"

"It's hard to say, it depends on the nature of the crime," the inspector replied.

Legal professionals are well aware that different characterizations lead to different penalties, ranging from a day to five or six years.

He couldn't help but sigh inwardly, thinking how unlucky his boss was; the product had only been online for a few days when it was targeted by a behemoth like Tencent.

Half an hour later, he returned to the company headquarters with a worried look on his face.

A group of heads of technology, operations, and marketing immediately surrounded him, asking, "How's the boss?"

"How did you know?" the legal counsel asked instinctively, looking surprised.

It's important to know that he and Zhang Yiming's trip to the inspection station to cooperate with the investigation was not publicized. "It's all over the internet!"

"There are tons of products that scrape information from other websites, why are they specifically targeting us?"

"Manager Zhang hasn't returned? This is troublesome! Could he be facing several years in prison?"

When no one saw Zhang Yiming, they immediately realized the situation was serious, and everyone became uneasy. The head of the technical department turned pale, fearing that he would be implicated.

Some things are worth less than four ounces if they are not weighed, and they cannot be weighed even a thousand pounds if they are weighed.

A complaint from a small website has a completely different effect than a report from six large companies, including Tencent, NetEase, and Sohu.

If the higher-ups want to make Lingxi's infringement a typical case, not only will Zhang Yiming be in trouble, but they will also suffer the consequences.

For a time, everyone at ByteDance was filled with anxiety.

Chen Yansen, who was far away in Xucheng, put Zhang Yiming's matter out of his mind after finishing his phone call with Liu Zhiping.

The next morning.

Zhang Yiming, exhausted and sleepy at the Zhongguancun Inspection Station, still couldn't understand why Lingxi Browser, with just 100 million users and less than 30 daily active users, would attract the attention of major portal websites.

At the same time, he also realized a truth.

The equity stake distributed too widely among investors means that ByteDance lacks a strong backer, and when it encounters even the slightest trouble, there is no powerful figure supporting it.

At this moment, Zhang Yiming regretted that he should have sold all 25% of the seed round equity to Senlian Capital.

At least, Chen Yansen will be more proactive in getting people out of trouble, considering they are both shareholders of ByteDance.

It was the first day of the May Day holiday, but Zhang Yiming stayed at the inspection station until 3 p.m., exactly 24 hours, before finally leaving the inspection station.

"Delete the offending content as soon as possible, apologize to the infringed party, pay the fine, and punish severely if the offense is repeated."

Zhang Yiming recalled Li Feng's warning and couldn't help but secretly groan.

The seed round of 500 million has already been mostly spent, and the remaining amount is not enough to obtain authorization from any website.

The afternoon sun in Yanjing was so bright it made people dizzy.

As Zhang Yiming walked to the front door, he suddenly saw a familiar face. The person was tall and round, blocking twenty centimeters of glaring light, and was looking at him with a smile.

"Mr. Zhang, I'm sorry I'm late," Gao Weilin said in a warm and welcoming manner.

"Mr. Gao, what brings you here?" Zhang Yiming asked, surprised and curious.

“Last night, the boss talked on the phone with Mr. Liu from Tencent, Mr. Ding from NetEase, and Mr. Zhang from Sohu until the early hours of the morning to help you resolve the issue.” Gao Weilin wiped non-existent sweat from his forehead, paused, and then said, “Mr. Chen went to great lengths to help you.”

Zhang Yiming felt a warmth in his heart, his eyes reddened, and he almost sobbed. In the end, he held back and forced a smile, saying gratefully, "Thank you, President Chen, and thank you, President Gao."

He knew that Gao Weilin must have taken a plane overnight to Yanjing.

"Why are you doing this to yourself?" Gao Weilin shook his head and said.

Zhang Yiming's smile was bitter; he understood Gao Weilin's unspoken meaning.

The initial plan that Senlian Capital discussed with him was that Senlian Capital would invest 3000 million yuan to take 80% of the shares; he would invest 300 million yuan and contribute his technology and manpower to take 20% of the shares.

However, after leaving Hangzhou and returning to Beijing, Zhang Yiming regretted it. He was reluctant to give up his controlling stake, but he was also worried that Senlian Capital's high shareholding would threaten his influence. So he brought in three other angel investors and completed ByteDance's seed round with Senlian Capital.

The goal was achieved, but Senlian Capital's support for Lingxi Browser was extremely limited.

On the contrary, Liang Bo, who left his job to join Today Technology, started a month later than him, but his product users had already reached tens of millions.

In terms of content, it has obtained authorization from platforms such as Tencent, Sohu, NetEase, Sina, and Youku.

But he himself had to live like a thief, constantly on edge.

At that moment, Zhang Yiming finally understood!
No matter how big a steamed bun is, it's not as delicious as a piece of cake!
He'd had enough of not having a powerful backer.

He knew very well that if ByteDance were a subsidiary of Senlian Capital, companies like Tencent, Sohu, and NetEase would also carefully consider their complaints before filing them.

"Mr. Gao, does Senlian have any plans to increase its stake in ByteDance?" Zhang Yiming looked at Gao Weilin expectantly.

"Of course there is, but there's no rush for investment. Let's go to the hotel first, take a shower, change our clothes, and get rid of the bad luck."

Gao Weilin waved his hand, indicating that he had also prepared pomelo leaves for Zhang Yiming.

There's nothing I can do; he's from Hong Kong Island, and he's more superstitious about these things.

Zhang Yiming was deeply moved and put his arm around Gao Weilin's shoulder, saying, "President Gao, I didn't think things through before. If I offended you in any way, please forgive me. I'll apologize to you at Jingzhaoyin tonight."

"Hey, stay away from me, you smell rotten."

Gao Weilin joked with a smile.

"Haha, it does seem to have a certain flavor." Zhang Yiming had spent a day at the patrol station, and his personality had become more and more composed, somewhat reminiscent of his enlightenment at Longchang.

The two went to the hotel first. Zhang Yiming quickly washed up, changed into a clean set of clothes, and then rushed back to ByteDance headquarters.

If I don't go back soon, all the employees might leave.

When Zhang Yiming appeared with Gao Weilin, the ByteDance members felt relieved and breathed a sigh of relief.

Upon learning that Senlian Capital would step in to resolve Lingxi's copyright issues and planned to invest an additional 2000 million yuan, everyone cheered and beamed with joy.

Zhang Yiming looked around, taking in his subordinates' reactions, and couldn't help but sigh: Did I really do something wrong before?

(End of this chapter)