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Huayi scores in IP court case |
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Written by Clifford Coonan
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Thursday, 24 April 2008 |
BEIJING -- Chinese legal authorities have pledged to crack down on one of the most popular forms of piracy – the use of internet cafés to watch pirate films, and a senior court said stiffer punishments would be imposed for copyright infringementg.
The Beijing High People's Court promised that tougher penalties were in the offing after three local courts dealt with 10 movie copyright infringement cases by internet cafes. In one case, leading Chinese producer Huayi Brothers, won its lawsuit against three cafes.
Internet cafes are the second most popular way of going online and China has about 113,000 licensed cafes, but there are many more that operate illegally. Those using the cafe are often migrant workers from the countryside.
The Xicheng District People's Court ruled that when the cafes screened "Mountain Patrol" without the authorization of Huayi, the film's lawful copyright holder on the mainland, they had infringed Huayi's right to online dissemination of information.
The court ordered the cafes to remove the movie from their online services immediately and pay 6,000 yuan ($860) to 8,000 yuan as compensation to Huayi.
Courts in Dongcheng and Chaoyang districts dealt with seven other similar cases, including piracy of Huayi hit "Assembly" by a café which was ordered to pay compensation of 23,000 yuan.
"Copyright infringement by Internet cafes has become a new phenomenon in intellectual property right (IPR) cases," Chen Jinchuan, the acting president of the IPR tribunal of the Beijing High People's Court, told a press conference.
In China, it is where kids too poor to afford PCs go to relax and watch movies downloaded from the internet, play video games and chat to their sweethearts.
"Lodging lawsuits against Internet cafes is becoming common as copyright holders want to maintain their rights and interests," Chen said.
Some internet cafés download movies without authorization, while others sign movie service agreements with suppliers who falsely claim to have obtained copyright authorization.
IPR-related cases have been on the rise in Beijing. Last year, courts in the capital dealt with more than 2,600 IPR-related disputes, an increase of 11 percent on 2006.
Under strict government licensing rules, cafes are required to log all customers, take note of their ID cards and monitor what websites they are looking at. But in practice these conditions are difficult to fulfil.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 28 April 2008 )
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