Court gives police broad powers to search and seize pirated movies throughout New Delhi
(APW_ENG_20050901.0066)
1) A New Delhi court, at the request of American movie companies, has issued a warrant that gives police power to search for and seize pirated films in any part of the city, an aggressive maneuver in the battle against piracy that is raising concerns in India.
2) The type of court order, known as a general search and seizure warrant, is normally reserved for matters of national security, not copyright infringement, Indian lawyers said Wednesday.
3) But the Motion Picture Association, the global arm of the Movie Picture Association of America, got a magistrate to issue a warrant for the entire city on July 19 because of the scope of the piracy problem and the police force's difficulty in combatting it, said Chander Lall, a lawyer for the group.
4) The MPA, based in Encino, California, initially tried to keep the warrant quiet in India for fear of tipping off those illegally selling pirated movies, he told The Associated Press.
5) "We didn't want it very heavily publicized initially because we did want successful raids," he said. "We did not want the pirates to know this is the order we have."
6) He could not say if police had conducted any raids since the issuing of the warrant, which gives authorities the power to open locked buildings and seize the contents.
7) Pirated movies are a major problem in India. Made locally or smuggled in from other Asian countries, like China, they are readily available in bazaars and even upscale shopping centers. Some are barely watchable recordings made in theaters, others are cinema-quality rip-offs.
8) Lall said MPA members _ which include Paramount Pictures Corp., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. and Twentieth Century Fox International Corp. _ lose some US$80 million (euro65.6 million) a year because about 60 percent of their movies available in India are pirated.
9) The Indian film industry has also complained about piracy, and it is estimated that box office takings of Bollywood films plummet to about 30 percent of regular earnings when pirated copies hit the market, typically within three to four weeks of the cinema release.
10) But the Indian film industry has gotten little relief from the courts _ a fact that has raised eyebrows about the latest warrant among lawyers who deal with intellectual property issues in India.
11) Pawan Duggal, a prominent lawyer who deals with electronic copyright issues, called the issuing of the warrant "an aggressive maneuver."
12) "We've been hearing about this order only recently and it's been causing a lot of heartburn," he said. "Indian films do not get these kinds of orders."
13) Duggal said he was an ardent supporter of copyright protections, but feared police could abuse the power given under the warrant.
14) "Why should copyright protection lead to the infringement of the privacy ... of people in a free society?" he asked.
15) But Lall, the MPA's lawyer, insisted the order would not be abused, saying it was simply a tool in the fight against pirated movies.
16) He said police have to get information before they can go into homes or businesses. "It's not an abuse of power that they will go around now breaking down people's homes, we're very careful about going into people's homes," Lall said.


Chinese court awards U.S. film studios US$25,000 in DVD piracy case
(APW_ENG_20070425.0600)
1) A court ordered a Beijing company on Wednesday to pay 195,000 yuan (US$25,000; euro18,500) in damages to six U.S. movie studios for selling pirated DVDs, a court official said, in the latest in a string of lawsuits over Chinese film piracy.
2) The ruling was the second this week by a Beijing court in a product piracy case and comes amid U.S. pressure to stamp out widespread copying of movies and other goods. Washington filed a World Trade Organization complaint this month accusing Beijing of violating its trade pledges by failing to stop the illicit industry.
3) The Motion Picture Association sued the Beijing Cherry Blossom Star Culture Co. on behalf of the studios after investigators bought 13 pirated movies at a shop owned by the company in 2005. They included "Before Sunset," "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and "I, Robot."
4) The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court ordered the company to pay 15,000 yuan (US$1,900; euro1,400) for each of the 13 movies, said Niu Cheng, an official of the court's General Office.
5) The studios represented in the lawsuit were Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., Sony Corp.'s Columbia Pictures, Universal City Studios LLP, Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures, News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox and The Walt Disney Co.
6) The ruling is the MPA's fourth court victory against Chinese sellers of pirated DVDs in the past six months. The group won lawsuits in March against a shop in Beijing and in December against shops in Shanghai and Beijing that sold pirated DVDs.
7) "The courts have been extremely supportive," said Roberto De Vido, an MPA spokesman. "The evidence is quite clear in terms of copyright infringement and the courts are sharing that view."
8) China is one of the world's leading producers of unlicensed copies of goods ranging from movies and designer clothes to sporting goods and medications. The government has launched repeated crackdowns, but pirated DVDs are widely available.
9) The MPA says 93 percent of DVDs sold in China are unlicensed copies, but De Vido said the group sues only offenders who continue to sell after being raided several times by police.
10) "They are companies and individuals who have demonstrated an unwillingness to comply with the law," he said.
11) The MPA, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups say that despite stricter Chinese enforcement, product piracy is growing faster than the government's actions amid the country's booming economic expansion.
12) The MPA also has said Beijing is creating demand for pirated movies by restricting imports.
13) To protect its own filmmakers, Beijing limited imports last year to 50 titles for theatrical release, including those from Hong Kong, according to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.
14) Beijing reacted angrily after the United States filed a WTO complaint this month accusing China of violating its trade commitments by failing to stamp out product piracy.
15) A senior official, Vice Premier Wu Yi, complained Tuesday that Washington was ignoring China's stepped-up enforcement and said Beijing will fight the complaint "to the last minute."
16) On Monday, a Beijing court ruled that Yahoo Inc.'s China arm aided online music piracy in a lawsuit brought by a trade group representing 11 recording companies.
17) Yahoo China was ordered to pay 210,000 yuan (US$27,000; euro20,000) in damages because its search engine linked to Web sites that carried unlicensed copies of 229 songs.