Piracy twist hits China

Yongde sez Web sites not authorized to show pix online

By CLIFFORD COONAN

BEIJING -- In an ironic twist on the usual piracy tale from China, the country's film copyright body has asked American law-enforcement officials to probe the illegal availability of some 150 Chinese films on U.S. Web sites.

Zhu Yongde, prexy of the China Film Copyright Protection Assn., said the sites were not authorized to show the films online and were violating copyright by allowing people to download the movies for free.

China's culture ministry, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the Motion Picture Assn. signed an agreement in mid-July to meet regularly to monitor piracy. However, there were no provisions to regulate the U.S. side as, until now, there have been no examples of copyright infringement of Chinese films in the U.S.

The MPA believes 95% of its members' products are pirated in China, costing $280 million in lost revenue last year.

In other news, a Hong Kong man found guilty last month of distributing "Daredevil," "Red Planet" and "Miss Congeniality" with BitTorrent technology was sentenced here Monday to three months in prison.

Case is the first to be tried against a BT user under Hong Kong copyright law. Chan plans to appeal.

(Vicki Rothrock in Hong Kong contributed to this report.)

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