ByteDance to pay 83m yuan over plagiarism

Staff reporter

Chinese tech giant ByteDance has been ordered to pay damages of 83 million yuan (HK$88.60 million) for code plagiarism, involving eight of its products including Douyin, the mainland's version of Tiktok, according to mainland media Cailianpress.

Meishe, a Beijing-based provider of intelligent audio-visual solutions, issued a statement on its WeChat account claiming that ByteDance's apps had copied a significant amount of code related to audio and video editing functions from their own products. Those apps also include the video-editing tool Jianying and the photo-editing tool FaceU.

Meishe filed the lawsuit in 2021 and recently, a final ruling was made by China's top court awarding it damages to the tune of 82.67 million yuan.

Meanwhile, US private equity groups have invested billions of dollars in data centers serving TikTok owner ByteDance, according to the Financial Times. The report states that firms such as Blackstone and Bain Capital have backed companies operating data centers in Malaysia, with ByteDance being one of their tenants.

In other news, Xiaomi (1810) may raise the price for its new flagship phone, scheduled to launch this month, due to rising research and development and component costs, says founder Lei Jun.

The price of a Xiaomi 15 Ultra may exceed the previous generation's 6,499 yuan, Lei said.

Xiaomi has been recognized for its aggressive pricing strategies across various product categories, positioning itself as a "price butcher" in the consumer tech industry.

For instance, its Redmi Note 14 series starts at a mere 1,099 yuan.