CCTV sues Internet portals over copyright violation
- Source: Global Times
- [07:28 July 31 2009]
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By Lin Jiasi
Six Chinese internet video portals have been ordered to pay the main state TV broadcaster CCTV 16.2 million yuan ($2.37 million) compensation for copyright infringements.
The Beijing Haidian District Court issued a preliminary order yesterday, claiming the websites had “hurt CCTV ratings and sales” after they downloaded and used CCTV content without the broadcaster’s consent.
The court also ordered the portals to stop broadcasting CCTV’s content, the Shanghai Morning Post (SMP) reported.
CCTV said ratings for its popular Chinese opera programmes had fallen alarmingly over the last year because they were illegally posted on websites and unlawfully downloaded by web users. The ratings drop had badly affected advertising revenue, the broadcaster claimed.
But one of the accused portals, aeeboo.com, told the Global Times that it was not aware of the prosecution brought by CCTV’s umbrella group, the China International Television Corporation.
“We didn’t know about this matter until we read about it in the news. It could be a rumor because no one has talked to us about paying compensation,” a spokeswoman for aeeboo.com, surnamed Bai, said.
Other portals involved in the case, including ku6.com and 6Rooms (6.cn), refused to comment on the court’s decision, while calls to the Beijing Haidian District Court and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television went unanswered yesterday.
The public relations director for ku6.com, surnamed Li, told reporters earlier this week that it will delete unlicensed content on its website as soon as it receives orders from the court. It uploads 80,000 videos everyday. Ku6.com was sued by iFeng.com and a Chinese movie production company for copyright infringements last year. Another ku6.com representative said much of the online CCTV programs were uploaded onto the site by Internet users, and “not by the website itself”, reported news site chinacsr. com. 6Rooms CEO Liu Yan told reporters that his portal has deleted the links since 2007, and will move away from TV and movie content completely by August this year.
