BIZCHINA / Copyright

Case study
(Business Weekly)
Updated: 2006-02-07 09:33

Illegal movies 

The Motion Picture Association of America told the National Copyright Administration (NCA) that Beijing Online Jiuzhou Information Technical Service Co Ltd is illegally profiting by offering movies such as " The Pacifier", "Super Agent 2" and "Trojan" through its website at www.116.com. The NCA handed the case over to the Copyright Administration of Beijing for investigation.

The subsequent investigation found the website was registered with the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry. It was illegally selling downloads without the permission of the intellectual property rights holder. The Copyright Administration of Beijing ordered the company to stop pirating the films and imposed a fine of 90,000 yuan (US$11,000).

Music copyrights

The international Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) filed a complaint with the National Copyright Administration that www.real2000.org was illegally providing songs such as "I'm Sunny" (Wo Shi Yang Guang De) and violating copyrights. The website's server was traced through the IP address to a machinery room in China Telecoms Changde Branch, in Central China's Hunan Province. The National Copyright Administration legally handed the case over to the Hunan Provincial Copyright Administration for investigation.

The investigation found that "Audio-Visual Music 2000" was a personal website started in April 2004 by Lei Zheng, a worker at a phosphate fertilizer plant in Shimen, Hunan Province. Without the permission of the copyright holder, Lei copied 150,000 songs to his website's server, and provided free downloads for subscribers. He released advertisements on the website, charged for downloads of mobile phone ring tones, and illegally earned 6,000 yuan (US$735).

The Hunan Provincial Copyright Administration has already ordered Lei to stop. It confiscated one server, imposed a fine of 10,000 yuan (US$1,225), and closed the website.


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