Douyin Baike Ordered to Pay 8 Million Yuan for “Scraping Baidu Baike Entries,” Baidu Baike Wins the Case

Recently, the Haidian District Court in Beijing issued a final ruling in the nation’s first case of competitive data scraping involving encyclopedia entries. Douyin Baike was ordered to pay Baidu 8 million yuan for unauthorized scraping of over 600,000 Baidu Baike entries. This nearly two-year legal battle marks the first recognition that platforms have independent rights over the organization of user-generated content (UGC). It affirms that Baidu’s extensive efforts in content building and curation deserve legal protection. Seen as a new benchmark in internet copyright law, the ruling sends a clear message: companies can no longer rely on “crawling” to lift content from others, especially as data becomes even more valuable in the AI era.