Photographer wins day in court over copyright breach

• Source: Global Times
• [13:09 July 23 2010]
• Comments

Shanghai Huangpu District People's Court will hear an online intellectual property right case brought by a news photographer against three popular web portals for using his work without permission.

Ma Jianming, a news photographer in Shanghai, found two years ago that his work had been published without his permission on more than 20 websites, including portals QQ.com, Rednet.cn, and Chinatv01.com, after he displayed some of his work on his personal blog. The infringement included 72 images used without permission by QQ.com.

According to Tuesday's Xinmin Evening News, Ma's case was rejected by several courts in Shanghai, as the courts ruled that the case should be heard in the place where the servers hosting the content are based.

The Huangpu District Court eventually accepted the case, acknowledging that it would be difficult to find the physical location of the servers hosting the content, and that equipment used by the companies is located in Shanghai.

Ma is asking for total compensation of 150,000 yuan ($22,125) from the three companies.

Global Times