Celebs fight back against rights infringements

Actors, singers and musicians are taking on unscrupulous firms who use their images and names without authorization. Zhang Yi reports.

Earlier this year, Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan was awarded compensation of 2.1 million yuan ($298,000) after winning a lawsuit he brought against a company that infringed his personality rights by using his name and image in an advertisement without permission.

According to Mo's lawyer, Liu Ruzhong, from the Tahota Law Firm in Beijing, the compensation was a record for a case of this kind in China, and it was the first time the writer had brought such a lawsuit since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012.