Sina, Sohu in Tussle over Rights to TV Series
China Business News, 5/24/10
Chinese online media company and wireless value-added service (WVAS) provider Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) has sued Beijing Television Shangpinjiazuo Culture - the producers of the television drama Shouji ("Mobile Phone") - and an unnamed third party for copyright infringement, demanding RMB 11.2 mln in compensation.
Sina alleges it signed a cooperation agreement with Shangpinjiazuo in June 2009, securing rights to broadcast the program exclusively online for three months beginning ten days after the first satellite TV broadcast.
According to the contract provided by Sina, the two sides agreed to cooperate in numerous areas including promotion and advertising, shooting, and online video broadcasting of the show. Sina agreed to pay a total sum of RMB 11.2 mln as part of the agreement, consisting of RMB 11 mln in promotional funds and a RMB 200,000 licensing fee for three-month exclusive online broadcast rights.
Sina said that it received a cease-and-desist notice from a competitor after Shangpinjiazuo resold the broadcast rights to the third-party company.
In a press conference on May 21, Shangpinjiazuo said that "new media" broadcasting rights to the program were licensed exclusively to Chinese VOD provider Voole. Shangpinjiazuo explained that it felt it had not been "respected" in its cooperation with Sina, and so decided to award new media rights to Voole. Included in the new media rights were online broadcast rights which Voole in turn awarded exclusively to Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU), while Voole retained mobile and IPTV broadcast rights.
Zhu Jiang, assistant to the CEO at Voole, said that since Voole obtained the rights from the publisher, whether it will sue to protect its rights depends upon its customer Sohu and vendor Shangpinjiazuo. A spokesperson for Sohu said that Sohu is a secondary content purchaser, and that copyright issues in this case are the responsibility of the copyright holder and publisher.
Keywords: Shangpinjiazuo Internet online video Voole broadcasting rights Sina Sohu Zhu Jiang law litigation IPR infringement
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