Studios seek compensation over Internet cafe screenings

A court has held the first hearing of a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by five US film studios against a Shanghai Internet Cafe and its software provider, a Beijing-based company.

The case was being heard by Shanghai No.2 Intermediate People's Court.

Columbia Pictures Corp, Universal City Studios, 20th Century Fox Film Corp, Paramount Pictures Corp and Disney Enterprise Inc allege they found the Tongxin Internet Cafe Co, a franchised store under the Eastday Bar chain operation, had offered 13 of their movies on their Video-On-Demand system, provided by Beijing-based Jeboo.com.

The studios are demanding 3.25 million yuan (US$440,000) in compensation from the two companies, including 200,000 yuan for copyright infringement on each of the 13 movies and legal expenses.

The plaintiffs are also seeking a public apology to be printed in the city's Xinmin Evening News.

The movies involved include Hollywood box-office hits such as "Night at the Museum," "X-Men United," "Charlie's Angels II" and "Pirates of the Caribbean II."

The attorney for Jeboo.com denied that the company were connected with the alleged copyright violation.

"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's attorney told the court.

Jeboo denied they had provided the other 11 movies in the VOD system provided to the Eastday Bar Tongxin Co.

However, the Tongxin Co operators, who chose to defend themselves, refuted Jeboo's statement.

"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," said one of the outlet operators.

The Internet cafe owners told the court that the 13 movies were provided by Jeboo, which constantly updated the VOD system.

Jeboo ceased technology support to the Internet cafe in late August after their contract ended.