Movie distributor Catchplay Inc (威望國際) said yesterday that it had secured the rights to 954 movies it purchased from California-based Studio Solution Groups (SSG) via a lawsuit against SSG in the US which lasted for a year.
The company, chaired by Timothy Chen (陳主望) — a nephew of smartphone vendor HTC Corp (宏達電) chairwoman Cher Wang (王雪紅) — said SSG has to compensate it for its losses, without giving an exact figure.
Among the 954 movies, 945 had already been released by Catchplay, while SSG sold the other nine movies to Catchplay and Media Development Corp (MDC, 媒體發展), set up by Catchplay’s former general manager Wayne Chang (張心望).
Catchplay said SSG sold the nine movies to MDC when Catchplay was unwilling to pay.
Three of the nine movies have not yet been released in Taiwan by the company, while the other six movies were released by MDC, it said.
After MDC released its six movies, Catchplay was granted a preliminary injunction from a US federal court on Oct. 11 last year to stop SSG from distributing the rights to the 954 movies. Since then, both Catchplay and MDC were required not to distribute the remaining three movies in Taiwan by the government, the company said.
Catchplay is still involved in a lawsuit with Chang in Taiwan for allegedly violating his fiduciary duties when he was at the company and another lawsuit with MDC for allegedly distributing the six movies illegally.
Catchplay released 130 movies out of the 400 to 500 movies released in Taiwan in 2011, accounting for about 25 percent of the market, Catchplay executive director Daphne Yang (楊麗貞) said.
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