Three major US film studios have won a landmark copyright-infringement suit against two Chinese companies in Shanghai accused of selling pirated movie discs, state press reported yesterday.
In the first case of its kind, a Shanghai court found Shanghai Hezhong Enterprise Development and Shanghai Yatu Film Culture Broadcasting guilty of intellectual property violations.
The local outfits were each ordered to pay 101,000 yuan (US$12,200) to 20th Century Fox Film, 35,000 yuan to Disney Corp and another 35,000 yuan to Vivendi's Universal Studios.
The two Shanghai DVD companies must also issue a public apology in a Chinese-language newspaper as well as admit to having sold pirated discs, the China Daily said.
It was the first lawsuit in Shanghai where film studios in concert with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have pursued the sales outlet companies.
"Pirated DVDs, especially copies of Hollywood movies, are rampant in the local market but foreign film companies seldom take legal action," the newspaper qutoed Pan Shishen, a court officer, as saying.
"The case will hopefully warn off others tempted to produce pirated DVDs as the US firms have pledged to take further court action if necessary," he said.
The MPAA, an association of nine major US film producers, has said it will launch another series of legal procedures later this year against those manufacturing and selling pirated film discs in China.
With China's admittance to the WTO, film studios are exploring new ways to enforce international intellectual property rights.
The Chinese government has irregularly fought to stamp out piracy for many years but it remains rampant, with copied films, music and software sold openly and largely with impunity.
Piracy in China runs at over 90 percent of titles produced.
Disguised as customers, agents of the three US film companies and public notaries bought a series of popular DVDs at the defendants' outlets and then used the evidence as the lynchpin to their case.
The court ruled that under the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, signed by the Chinese government in 1992, the local firms had violated international copyright laws.
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