Chapter 254: Enlightenment at Longchang: I, Zhang Yiming, Must Find a Backer

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

"Thank you, Mr. Chen." Zhang Yiming immediately breathed a sigh of relief, speaking with heartfelt gratitude.

In his view, as long as they actively rectified the situation, promptly deleted the infringing content, and paid at most an additional sum of money, the problem could be resolved.

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

After hanging up the phone, Zhang Yiming took his legal counsel along, the two of them went downstairs, got into his commuter car, and headed straight for the nearby inspection bureau.

Meanwhile, Chen Yansen put down his phone and continued reviewing the project data.

Zhang Yiming wasn't his son, and the Lingxi Browser's infringement was a fact; he had merely lit this fuse ahead of time.

If a young man doesn't suffer a little, how can he understand the importance of finding someone powerful to lean on?

Fifteen minutes later, Zhang Yiming walked into the inspection bureau.

He had assumed he wouldn't be nervous, but the moment his foot stepped into the lobby and he saw inspectors in uniform one after another, his heart still couldn't help but skip a beat.

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

"I'm Zhang Yiming, the person in charge of ByteDance. I've come to cooperate with the investigation into the Lingxi Browser's infringement issue."

Zhang Yiming explained slowly.

"Big Lao Wang, take these two to the interrogation room, and let Captain Zhang know that the people from ByteDance are here." The inspector called out to another colleague.

"You're the corporate person in charge of ByteDance? And him?" Big Lao Wang walked over and asked.

"Company legal counsel." Zhang Yiming answered truthfully.

"Come with me." Big Lao Wang said, then led the way toward the interrogation room.

The legal counsel stayed where he was.

Although Zhang Yiming felt a tightness in his chest and shortness of breath, he could still keep his composure. He believed in Chen Yansen's ability, and at the same time hadn't taken the complaints from Penguin and other companies to heart.

One minute later, when he sat in the chair facing two inspectors and three staff members from the Copyright Association, he couldn't help but start to panic.

"Mr. Zhang, I'm Zhang Zhanhui from the Zhongguancun Inspection Bureau. This is Li Feng, Director Li from the Copyright Association. We asked you to come mainly because the Copyright Association received complaints from six companies including Penguin, NetEase, Sohu, and Sina, stating that the Lingxi Browser reprinted their articles without permission, with total clicks exceeding sixty million. What do you have to say?"

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

"Captain Zhang, Director Li, the Lingxi Browser is merely a technical platform. It extracts summaries through crawlers, and ultimately jumps back to the original news websites. This falls under Article 23 of the 'Regulations on the Protection of the Right of Communication through Information Networks'—the safe harbor principle. It does not constitute infringement."

Zhang Yiming answered with a calm expression.

"But according to the technical appraisal, Lingxi's server cached large amounts of full-text information. Take this article 'PM2.5 Governance Controversy' from the 'Yanjing Evening News' for example. Others invested massive manpower and material resources to gather and write news, yet you lot just take it and use it. What's the difference between that and theft?"

Zhang Zhanhui snorted coldly.

A flash of embarrassment crossed Zhang Yiming's face. He knew this wasn't exactly proper, but ByteDance had no money and no resources. To develop quickly, their methods had to be unorthodox. Which famous entrepreneur built their career by playing strictly by the rules?

He leaned forward slightly and said sincerely: "Technically, we only store temporary caches for 72 hours. This complies with Article 5 of the 'Administrative Measures for the Protection of Internet Copyright'."

Zhang Zhanhui laughed. He hadn't expected the other party to be so thoroughly prepared. It was obvious that Zhang Yiming had thoroughly researched the laws and policies before scraping content from various news outlets.

Li Feng of the Copyright Association raised his eyelids and said: "In March and April, Lingxi earned 800,000 yuan through advertising revenue sharing based on infringing content. This falls under the circumstance of illegal income of a particularly large amount—the minimum is three years, the maximum is seven years. Do you understand?"

To put it bluntly, if Lingxi's behavior were defined as ordinary infringement, things would be much simpler: delete all infringing content, apologize to the complainants including Penguin, and finally pay a fine.

But Li Feng's words clearly intended to categorize Lingxi under the scope of "infringing with the purpose of profit and with intent."

Just as he said, once the nature changes, the responsibility changes too.

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

"Go back? You can't go back!" Zhang Zhanhui replied calmly.

Can't go back?

What does that mean?

Zhang Yiming's head buzzed. He opened his mouth, but was so nervous that not a single sound came out.

Zhang Zhanhui and Li Feng exchanged a glance, then walked straight out of the interrogation room, leaving Zhang Yiming alone in the room.

If Penguin and the three major portal websites hadn't filed a joint complaint, the Copyright Association wouldn't have taken up this case on its own.

Small fry like ByteDance—there were countless ones in the country. Not to mention they couldn't handle them all, even if Penguin wanted to sue them, they couldn't keep up.

Usually, it was only during the "Jianwang Action" campaign that unified handling of internet copyright infringement would be carried out.

"Does Penguin really want to put someone away?"

After walking out of the interrogation room, Zhang Zhanhui frowned slightly and pressed.

"Lock him up for a day, teach him a lesson. Otherwise, everyone will follow suit, and I'll be worked to death." Li Feng raised an eyebrow, dismissive.

ByteDance's legal counsel waited at the inspection bureau until eight o'clock in the evening, still unable to get any result. He asked an inspector: "When can Mr. Zhang come out?"

"Hard to say, depends on how it's classified." The inspector replied.

The legal counsel knew well in his heart that different classifications meant different punishments—short as one day, long as five or six years.

He couldn't help but sigh inwardly. His own boss's luck was just too bad. The product had only been online for a few days before being targeted by a giant like Penguin.

Half an hour later, he returned to the company headquarters with a worried frown.

A group of people in charge of technology, operations, and marketing immediately crowded around and asked: "How's the boss?"

"How did you find out?" The legal counsel looked surprised and instinctively asked.

You should know, he and Zhang Yiming going to the inspection bureau to cooperate with the investigation hadn't been made public.

"It's all over the internet!"

"There are tons of products scraping information from other websites, so why are they picking on us specifically?"

"Mr. Zhang hasn't come back? This is trouble! He's not going to have to serve a few years, is he?"

Not seeing Zhang Yiming, everyone instantly felt things had gotten serious. Each of them felt uneasy, and the head of the technology department turned pale, afraid of being implicated.

Some things weigh nothing off the scale, but once on the scale, even a thousand jin can't hold them down.

A complaint from a small website has a completely different effect from a report by six major companies like Penguin, NetEase, and Sohu.

If the higher-ups want to make an example of Lingxi's infringement, then not only will Zhang Yiming be in trouble, but none of them will get off easy either.

For a time, panic spread throughout ByteDance.

Far away in Hangcheng, Chen Yansen finished his phone call with Liu Zhiping and promptly put the matter of Zhang Yiming out of his mind.

The next morning.

At the Zhongguancun Inspection Office, exhausted Zhang Yiming still could not figure it out — Lingxi Browser had only just reached one million users with fewer than three hundred thousand daily actives, so why on earth had it drawn the attention of all the major portal sites?

At the same time, he also came to see one truth clearly.

Giving the investors such scattered equity meant ByteDance had no powerful backer; the moment any trouble arose, there was no big shot standing behind him.

Right now, Zhang Yiming was a little regretful — he should have sold the entire 25% seed-round stake to Senlian Capital back then.

At the very least, out of consideration for being fellow ByteDance shareholders, Chen Yansen would have been more proactive in pulling him out.

It was the first day of the Labor Day holiday, yet Zhang Yiming had been stuck at the Inspection Office until three in the afternoon — a full twenty-four hours — before he finally walked out the door.

"Delete the infringing content as soon as possible, offer a formal apology to the aggrieved party, and pay the fine. If it happens again, there will be no leniency."

Zhang Yiming recalled Li Jing's warning and could not help groaning inwardly.

The seed-round five million was already more than half spent; what little remained could not secure authorization from any website at all.

The afternoon sun over Yanjing was dazzling enough to make one's head spin.

Zhang Yiming had just reached the entrance when he suddenly spotted a familiar face — tall and round, blocking twenty centimeters of harsh sunlight, smiling right at him.

"President Zhang, sorry I'm late." Gao Weilin said with a spring-like warmth.

"President Gao, what brings you here?" Zhang Yiming asked, genuinely shocked and curious.

"Last night the boss, along with Penguin's President Liu, NetEase's President Ding, Sohu's President Zhang and others, were on the phone until the small hours before they finally mediated things for you." Gao Weilin wiped a bead of sweat that did not actually exist on his forehead, paused, then added: "President Chen burned quite a bit of goodwill for your sake."

Zhang Yiming felt a sudden warmth in his chest, his eyes reddened, and he nearly broke into sobs, but in the end held it in, forcing out a faint smile as he said gratefully: "Thank you, President Chen, and thank you too, President Gao."

He knew Gao Weilin must have taken a red-eye flight to rush to Yanjing.

"You, why put yourself through all this." Gao Weilin said, shaking his head.

Zhang Yiming smiled bitterly; he understood the unspoken meaning behind Gao Weilin's words.

Originally, the first plan Senlian Capital had discussed with him was: Senlian Capital would invest thirty million yuan for an 80% stake; he would put in three million yuan plus his technology and labor for a 20% stake.

But after leaving Hangcheng and returning to Yanjing, Zhang Yiming had second thoughts. He could not bear to give up controlling interest, yet also worried that Senlian Capital's heavy stake would threaten his own voice. So he brought in three other angel investors to complete ByteDance's seed round together with Senlian Capital.

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

Meanwhile, Liang Bo, who had left to join Today Tech, had started a month later than him, yet his product's users had long since reached the tens-of-millions level.

In terms of content, he had even secured authorization from Penguin, Sohu, NetEase, Sina, Youku and other platforms.

Yet here he was, having to skulk around like a thief, on edge all day long.

At this moment, Zhang Yiming finally saw the light!

A steamed bun may be bigger, but it is never as tasty as a slice of cake!

He had had more than enough of days without a big shot backing him.

He knew perfectly well: if ByteDance had been a subsidiary of Senlian Capital, companies like Penguin, Sohu and NetEase would have thought twice before filing complaints.

"President Gao, does Senlian have plans to increase its stake in ByteDance?" Zhang Yiming asked, looking at Gao Weilin with eager anticipation.

"Of course, but investment matters can wait. Let's head to the hotel first, take a shower, change clothes, and wash off the bad luck."

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

He could not help it — he was from Hong Kong Island and tended to be superstitious about such things.

Zhang Yiming was deeply moved. Throwing an arm around Gao Weilin's shoulder, he said: "President Gao, I just wasn't thinking clearly before. If I offended you in any way, please forgive me. Tonight I'll make it up to you at Jingzhaoyin."

"Ugh, keep your distance — you reek of sweat."

Gao Weilin said with a teasing laugh.

"Ha ha ha, seems like there is a bit of a smell." After spending a full day at the Inspection Office, Zhang Yiming's temperament had grown markedly steadier — there was even a hint of "enlightenment at Longchang" about him.

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

If he did not get back soon, there was no telling whether his employees would all have fled.

When Zhang Yiming appeared with Gao Weilin, the ByteDance team felt their hearts settle at once and could not help letting out a long breath of relief.

Upon learning that Senlian Capital would step in to resolve Lingxi's copyright troubles and planned to add another twenty million yuan in investment, everyone cheered and beamed with smiles.

Zhang Yiming looked around, taking in every reaction of his subordinates, and could not help sighing softly: Had he really been wrong all along?

(End of chapter)