Six US Filmmakers Nails Pirated DVD Vendor
2007/03/30 ChinaSix US filmmakers, including Paramount, jointly sued Shanghai Dikai AV Company for selling pirated DVDs carrying 21 films including War of the Worlds. The Shanghai Second Intermediate People's Court made its first-instance decision on March 22, ordering Dikai to pay a total of 158,000 RMB damage to the six plaintiffs and imposing a penalty of 50,000 RMB on the defendant.
In July 2006, staff of one of the US companies found Dikai was selling War of the Worlds and other film DVDs, the copyright of which belong to the six US filmmakers including Paramount, Columbia and New Line Cinema.
The Shanghai court held that Dikai, in an attempt to make profit, had infringed the plaintiffs' copyrights of film works by selling pirated AV products, and accordingly should cease infringement and compensate the plaintiffs' damage. The plaintiffs' other claims, ordering the defendant to apologize publicly and to remove impacts, were not sustained by the court for this case was the property-type copyright infringement.
2007-03-30
