NY Times article "China Media Battle Hints at Shift on Intellectual Property" by Howard W. French states:
One of China’s largest newspapers has filed a lawsuit against one of the country’s leading Internet portals claiming that it violated copyright laws, setting off a media war and highlighting the first signs of a possible shift in policies toward intellectual property rights here.
In the suit, which was filed in October and is expected to go to court soon, the newspaper, The Beijing News, is seeking $400,000 in damages from a popular Internet site called Tom.com, alleging that it has copied and republished more than 25,000 articles and photos without authorization since 2003....
“There is a very brutal competition between newspapers — with seven or eight big ones just in Beijing — and now a big, new player, the Internet, wants to wipe them all out, to change the landscape,” said Yu Guofu, a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property. “The press is leading a hard life and facing an unpleasant future, but it has decided it is better to protect its rights than just sit and wait to die.”....
Comments