Analysis Of The Infringement Of The Right Of Reputation Between Peking University And Zou Hengfu

With the rapid development of microblog, its influence increases every day, which makes more and more people use microblog to participate in the latest social hot issues and breaking news. The functions of microblog such as forward, comment and thumb up make microblog the rapidest media for information transform, attracting more people to choose microblog this neoteric media for transforming and receiving information or even becoming an indispensable part of many people’life. Microblog does bring convenience to people; however, it also brings challenges and impact to individual reputation. The legislation and judiciary of internet infringement are still imperfect in our country and the reputation infringement events emerge in endlessly in microblog, which is of great significance in the case study of juridical practice. This paper analyzes the typical case of Peking University charging Zou Hengfu of reputation infringement. The paper starts from the focus of their dispute, with the aid of related theoretical analysis and related legislation about reputation infringement, discussing the cases in detail. The first part is a brief summary of the entire case and its trial result. The second part concentrates on discussing several main issues in the trial process.First, by expounding the concept and characters of public corporation and declaring the regime of public corporation in various areas, this paper is proposed to resolve whether Peking University Institution has public corporation attribute. And by the current theoretical cycles’analysis of the reputation right, it leads to a subject that whether the reputation right of public corporation exists. In addition, based on the relevant argument, this paper analyzes the reputation right of public corporation so as to demonstrate that the Peking University owns the reputation right and the university is the proper plaintiff of this case.Second, whether the defendant’s comments in the Sina microblog commit reputation infringement is analyzed. Our country adopted the general theory of tort liability component to confirm the civil liability of violating the reputation right, and considered there must be four factors in the reputation infringement:break the law, practical damage, causal relationship and fault. Combining with this case, the paper uses the theory of four factors to analyze the reputation infringement, which concludes that Zou Hengfu commits reputation infringement and should bear liability for tort.Besides, aiming at whether Zou Hengfu’s lawsuit-involved comments could be confirmed as the supervision right toward the public utilities, this paper analyzes the reasons for liability exemption, and further discusses the conflict between public corporation’s reputation right and public opinions’ supervision. The rapid development of microblog makes the conflict more intensive. Only by realizing the appearance and reasons of the conflict, can we better protect the reputation right of public corporation.