Fake Copyright Registration Scam on E-Commerce: Fabricating Picture Copyrights to Mass-Sue 15,000 Online Stores

Who Gets Targeted

The victims are primarily small and medium-sized sellers and source-free store operators on platforms like Taobao, Pinduoduo, and Douyin Xiaodian. Mostly sole proprietors or micro-teams, they lack legal expertise. Their psychological weaknesses are highly consistent: First, upon receiving court summonses or platform complaint notifications, they panic, assuming they are bound to lose. Second, afraid that store penalties or product removals will affect their livelihood, they prefer to settle out of court for a few hundred to a few thousand yuan. Third, unaware that copyright registration only undergoes formal examination rather than substantive review, they mistakenly believe that holding a registration certificate equates to having ironclad proof. Consequently, they forfeit the opportunity to investigate whether the opposing party truly created or holds the rights, carelessly transferring funds to settle.

骗局怎么运作

• Step 1: Mass hoarding of images and forgery of ownership materials. Syndicates collect images from the internet or buy them cheaply, or even use AI to mass-generate images. They then pose as original creators, applying for copyright registration through agents or tampering with work registration certificates. Because registrations only undergo formal examination without substantive review, the certificates easily serve as intimidating props, using the pitch: 'We hold a National Copyright Administration registration certificate with clear ownership.'
• Step 2: Full-web scanning to lock onto targets. Using reverse image search technology, they scan major e-commerce platforms for product links using identical or similar images, locking onto thousands of stores at once. They purchase notarized evidence from select stores, packaging normal product displays into infringement evidence, with the pitch: 'Evidence has been notarized and secured, you cannot deny it.'
• Step 3: A dual-pronged approach of platform complaints and court lawsuits. On one hand, they initiate intellectual property complaints on e-commerce platforms to force product removals and store penalty points, creating operational pressure. On the other hand, they file batch lawsuits in court, typically keeping individual claim amounts under a few thousand yuan—just below the cost of defense—using the pitch: 'Defense lawyer fees alone cost over 10,000 yuan, a settlement is only 2,000 yuan, do the math yourself.'
• Step 4: Pressuring settlements through lawsuits. Through proxy lawyer letters and mediation calls, they exert repeated pressure, emphasizing that the opponent's business license and ID information have been secured and threatening enforcement action if compensation is refused. Capitalizing on small sellers' fear of lawsuits and criminal records, they push them into quick transfers during the settlement stage. While individual store amounts are small, multiplied by tens of thousands of stores, this generates massive gray-area revenue.
• Step 5: Outsourcing loss risks and isolating liability. Syndicates typically delegate external law firms or rights-protection companies to step forward layer by layer, restricting themselves solely to copyright transfers and authorizations. Once a case breaks, they claim ignorance, shifting criminal liability onto the agents. This forms a cut-off chain of 'Right Holder - Rights Protection Company - Law Firm,' making it extremely difficult to trace fund flows.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 The opposing party only presents copies of the copyright registration certificate while refusing to provide substantive ownership evidence such as original creation drafts, design source files, and creation process records. The registration certificate alone does not prove genuine creation.
• 🚩 The same right holder files lawsuits against hundreds or thousands of stores in a short period, with standardized claim amounts that are significantly lower than normal rights-protection costs, displaying clear characteristics of lawsuit-driven settlements and assembly-line operations.
• 🚩 Urging private settlement transfers to personal or non-right-holder corporate accounts within an extremely short time limit, accompanied by threats of platform penalty points, store bans, and blacklisting.
• 🚩 The alleged image can be found on the public internet with earlier usage records, or is highly similar to AI-generated images, clearly differing from original works claimed to have been created at the stated time.
• 🚩 The commissioned rights-protection party simultaneously claims to offer one-stop paid services including withdrawing lawsuits, deleting complaints, and handling notarizations, bundling rights protection with gray services.
• 🚩 Defendant information in the complaints is batch-copied from a template, showing sloppy traces such as misattribution, including stores that never used the disputed images among the defendants.

真实案例

• According to a report by Hefei Online in January 2026, a syndicate fabricated picture copyrights and initiated about 15,000 scam-style lawsuits against online stores nationwide, profiting through batch claims. After trial, four defendants were held criminally accountable according to law, becoming a typical case of fabricated copyright batch litigation being cracked down upon criminally.
• According to an investigation into AI painting defendants reported by 36Kr in 2024, in multiple batch rights-protection disputes involving image copyrights, the ownership proof provided by some rights holders showed noticeable discrepancies with the actual creation process. Courts held varying standards for the protectability and originality of AI-generated content in individual cases, creating space exploited by gray industries for speculative claims.
• According to a Sina Finance report in April 2026, a syndicate used AI to generate infringing images, created collages for sale, and illegally profited 270,000 yuan. Four individuals were sentenced respectively, showing that infringement and counterfeit ownership in the AI image field coexist, with both ends of the industry chain brought into the judicial crackdown scope. This inversely corroborates the criminal risk of profiting through fabricated and abused image ownership.

Official Stance

• In September 2026, the Cyberspace Administration of China deployed the second stage of the special action 'Qinglang - Rectifying Chaos in AI Applications,' publicizing cases of AI application chaos such as counterfeiting and impersonation, emphasizing the crackdown on illegal and rule-breaking profit-making behaviors utilizing AI technology.
• In January 2026, the Hefei court system publicly reported the judgment results of cases involving fabricated picture copyright scam lawsuits against online stores, clarifying that mass claims and malicious litigation based on fabricated ownership with serious circumstances can constitute criminal offenses.
• In April 2026, the Beijing court system reported the judgment of the first AI-area copyright infringement case, where individuals were sentenced for using AI to copy and sell others' art works, demonstrating the judicial authorities' continuous high-pressure stance against various illegal profit-making models in the AI image industry chain.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ Upon receiving a lawyer's letter or summons, do not rush to transfer money for a private settlement. Log into the China Copyright Protection Center copyright registration system to verify the authenticity of the certificate, and demand that the opposing party present creation drafts, source files, and first-publication evidence.
• ✅ Use reverse image search tools to independently check the earliest appearance time and source of the disputed image. If it predates the creation time claimed by the opponent, immediately secure the evidence to use as a non-infringement defense or counter-claim for malicious litigation.
• ✅ When facing platform complaints, promptly submit non-infringement statements and legal source proofs for appeal, avoiding product deletions or store penalty points caused by default inaction. The appeal record itself serves as subsequent litigation evidence.
• ✅ For daily business visuals, prioritize verifiable genuine stock libraries or self-taken photos, retaining purchase orders, authorization agreements, and raw shooting files to establish an image usage ledger ready for verification.
• ✅ Upon discovering clues that the same entity is batch-suing multiple peers, report to the trial court that they are suspected of malicious litigation, and report to public security or procuratorial organs. Fabricated ownership batch claims have already been legally judged and recognized as criminal offenses.