Qihoo 360’s short video app caught red-handed stealing content and more

Qihoo 360’s new video streaming platform Kuaishipin (快视频 translated roughly to ‘fast video’) issued an official apology on Weibo to Bilibili creators today over the recent content theft allegations, TechNode Chinese is reporting.

Kuaishipin, launched by the Chinese internet security company Qihoo 360 last November, is a video streaming platform for 1-3 minute short videos. The video streaming site has come under heat since mid-February when creators of other rival sites, including Bilibili, Kuaishou, and Weibo accused Kuaishipin users of ripping-off their content. Some users found that not only their content had been stolen, but their account information and profile picture could also be found on Kuaishipin. On top of content theft, Kuaishipin was accused of hacking user accounts as, allegedly, some creators can log in to Kuaishipin with Bilibili username and password.

Bilibili’s content operation team released a statement in response, acknowledging the ongoing content infringement and piracy and that they will take legal actions necessary to protect their users. Bilibili also issued a legal letter to Kuaishipin, demanding the team to remove all the pirated content completely and issue a public apology.

In Kuaishipin statement, the team apologized for their negligence and carelessness in screening and managing the content on their site and acknowledged that there are accounts that use other creator’s personal information without permission.

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Kuaishipin said they will start policing the fake accounts to crack down on content infringement on their site. Kuaishipin also said in the statement that, as of February 22, the 4790 pirated accounts had been found, with 16400 cases of content theft. The company added they have taken down all the accounts immediately.