CCTV wins lawsuit over illegal webcast

China Central Television won a lawsuit on Tuesday against an Internet site based in Guangzhou that aired a portion of the Olympic torch relay last year without permission from the State-owned network.

CCTV's website was awarded 300,000 yuan ($43,950) in compensation Tuesday (October 13).

The Shijilong Information Network Company showed the live broadcast of the torch relay on May 8, 2008 when the torch was at the world's highest peak on Mount Qomolangma. The lawsuit said www.21cn.com did so without authorization from cctv.com and failed to remove the video from the site when CCTV requested it.

Shijilong turned a deaf ear to the request, provoking cctv. com to take a legal action. The network asked for 4.1 million yuan in damages.

Liu Lu, the director of cctv. com’s copyright protection department, told the Global Times Wednesday that winning the case marked a "phased victory" against illegal webcast transmissions of its programs although the compensation was smaller than expected.

"The country has invested a lot of resources, including manpower and leading technology to make the program (torch relay broadcasting), and it's unfair for those websites to steal our program to benefit their own wallet," Liu said.

In 2007, the International Olympic Committee appointed cctv.com the only official online broadcaster of last year's Olympics events in China, which included audio and video content of 3,800 hours of Olympic events, the opening and closing ceremonies, test events, cultural events before and after the Olympics, the Olympic flame gathering, and the torch relay.

However, illegal webcasts of Olympic-related programs were commonplace since the torch relay began last March.

"Most websites would immediately delete illegal contents after receiving our warning, but Shijilong failed to cooperate. If we don't take any action, that means we condone online piracy," Liu said.

Shijilong was not immediately available for comment.

Pu Zhiqiang, a patent lawyer in Beijing, told the Global Times that the case shows the traditional media stand ready to protect their interests and are willing to fight against online piracy through legal means.

"The painful efforts of reporters and producers from traditional media must be respected through prevention against online privacy," he said.

However, Lang Jinsong, a professor at the Communication University of China, recognized the dilemma facing traditional media in fighting online privacy.

"It's tricky to resolve the conflicts between traditional media and emerging websites media," Lang said. "But it's not always cost effective to resort to legal actions because it's time consuming and wastes social and legal resources to file a case."

Lang suggested that a membership-based collective media association be established to oversee online privacy. She said charging websites airing content from newspapers or TV stations is similar to China Audio-Video Copyright Association, which was set up in 2008 to manage the copyright and the related rights of audios or videos.