Xunlei rejects piracy trail at Pudong court

A Pudong court today received a rejection paper from a popular Chinese Website that said the Shanghai court was not the appropriate place to deal with a lawsuit filed against the firm by the Hollywood-based Motion Picture Association.

Shenzhen-based Xunlei Networking Technology Co, one of the biggest video information and download software providers in China, said that it has no server in Pudong New Area that offers Internet users download services of movies that, the US film group said, was illegal piracy, Jiefang Daily reported today.

The association sued Xunlei last month at the Pudong court, accusing the Website of allowing users of its file-sharing service to download hundreds of movies from other Websites despite repeated warnings.

It demanded seven million yuan (US$1 million) compensation along with a public admittance of its illegal act, according to previous reports.

The association accused Xunlei of allowing users of its peer-to-peer, or P2P, service download copies of movies including "Spider-Man 3," "War of the Worlds" and "Miami Vice." It accused Xunlei of continuing to allow violations after the group's lawyers sent 78 warnings.

Xunlei said in today's paper that the firm's server was in Shenzhen's Nanshan District and that the lawsuit should be at a court there, the report said.

The Pudong court hasn't responded yet, the report said.

Xunlei claims to be the biggest download platform provider in the world and covers about 100 million Internet users, the report said.

The Motion Picture Association is the international arm of the Los Angeles-based Motion Picture Association of America. Its members are Walt Disney Co's Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Paramount Pictures Corp, Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp, Universal City Studios LLLP and Warner Bros Entertainment Inc.

The association said it has filed a series of lawsuits against Chinese vendors of illegally copied DVDs. The group says it has been awarded two million yuan since 2006.