Quick Links

Columnists

HAVE YOUR SAY in the ip review poll

Which type of magazine do you read the most to keep up-to-date with Industry news?

US movie studios sue Chinese online cinema

Full Story

20th Century Fox, Columbia, Disney, Paramount and Universal are suing Jeboo.com China’s largest provider of online movie content and Eastday Bar, a Internet Café chain for breaching copyright law.

The Shanghai court hearing the case has issued a statement, "that the six cases may be heard collectively, because the defendant and legal facts are all the same".

Jeboo.com has been accused of broadcasting hit movies such as X Men 2 to Internet Café users without the permission of the movie studios, which they claim is a violation of the movie companies' intellectual property rights.

The five companies allying together for this case have asked for Jeboo.com to: cease broadcasting the material, offer a formal apology printed in a local city newspaper, general compensation of $432,000 and a further $200,000 for each of the supposed 13 films that were incorrectly used.

Jeboo.com have refuted the claim that they offered the 13 films, their attorney told the court, "One of our agents installed the VOD system for the Shanghai Internet bar. We have paid to get legal authorization to broadcast two of the movies involved in the case". Jeboo.com denied that the other 11 films were offered through their VOD software.

However one of the outlet operators of the Eastday Bar claimed, "We are only the Internet cafe owners. We know nothing at all about movie downloading. We just paid to have the movie-broadcast system installed on our computers".

In a statement released by Jeboo.com they claimed to be "deeply surprised and confused … Our company has always operated abiding by copyright regulations, and we will always do so. Each movie or TV play has formal copyright agreements and authorization".