5 U.S. movie studios win piracy court case against Beijing DVD store

BEIJING (AP) - Five U.S. movie studios have won a court case against a Beijing shop accused of selling pirated copies of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," "War of the Worlds" and other titles, the Motion Picture Association said Tuesday. The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court ruled the Yu Hao Qing DVD store and its parent company, Beijing Century Hai Hong Trading Co. Ltd, were guilty of copyright infringement. It ordered them to stop selling pirated moves and pay US$20,100 in compensation.

The association said the case brought by Sony Corp.'s Columbia Pictures Industries Inc., Walt Disney Co.'s Disney Enterprises Inc., Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures Corp., News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. and Universal City Studios LLP also highlighted the need for China to open market access to foreign movies.

"It is a small step up a very big mountain," Roberto De Vido, a spokesman with the MPA, told The Associated Press.

Phones were not answered at the court Tuesday and representatives of the Chinese company could not be reached for comment.

Beijing is awash in pirated videos - costing as little as $1 - which often go on sale shortly after they appear in theatres in North America or Europe.

Good quality, pirated versions of the hit movie "Borat" went on sale on Beijing streets earlier this week.

Frank Rittman, an MPA vice-president and Asian legal counsel, said the court victory also highlighted the problem of lack of access to China's market for foreign moviemakers, with only 20 of the movies allowed to be released a year, creating huge demand that is filled by pirated videos.

"The maintenance of the theatrical exhibition quota, combined with the frequent imposition of blackouts on the theatrical release of foreign films ... gives movie pirates a tremendous market advantage," Rittman said in a statement.

China restricts film imports in an effort to protect its state-run studios, which have had little success competing with popular Hollywood titles. Foreign films are barred from theatres during holidays and other periods when movie audiences are biggest.

The Los Angeles-based MPA, which represents U.S. studios in international markets, says it filed 10 lawsuits in 2002-03 against manufacturers or retailers accused of film piracy, and all were decided or settled in favour of the group's member companies.

© The Canadian Press, 2006