The website of the China News Service has filed suit against a commercial site, www.hc360.com -- which is run by the private-sector company HC International Inc. -- for alleged intellectual property rights infringement.

CNS has demanded that www.hc360.com halt what CNS said was the illegal re-transmission of news items from CNS or its website immediately, and it has demanded compensation of 1 million yuan (143,000 US dollars) for any items re-transmitted without authorization, the People's Daily reported here on Monday.

CNS also demanded that the commercial site make a public apology, the newspaper said.

On April 9, the Beijing No.1 Intermediary Court opened a hearing on the case.

CNS began legal action after negotiations with www.hc360.com, an e-commerce site, failed. CNS had sought payment for what it said were many years of unauthorized re-transmission of news items.

Under the relevant regulations for website news management, licensed news organizations can disseminate their own news items. They must first register with the Information Office of the State Council (IOSC).

News and commercial websites that wish to re-transmit news from other media organizations must get licenses from the IOSC and reach agreements with those organizations whose news items they wish to use.

"The commercial website (hc360) has no agreement with CNS and always refused to pay us," Yu Shu, the official in charge of the CNS website operation, was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

"Currently, many commercial websites are illegally copying news items from CNS," Yu said. "Some even used the news without any change and some only made small changes."

Zhang Yan, a lawyer for CNS, said that 6,300 news items from CNS had been copied without modification by www.hc360.com.

In line with the regulations of the National Copyright Administration released in 1995, 50 yuan should be paid per 1,000 characters for the re-transmission of news items. Compensation for unauthorized use can run two to five times as much.

"Our claim for compensation is reasonable in line with the regulation," said Zhang.

The dispute centers on the definition of "news." Under clause five of China's Copyright Law, news about current affairs is not protected by the law. But CNS and hc360 differ on what the disputed items actually were.

The www.hc360.com site has claimed that the items only concerned the mere facts of current affairs, which are not protected.

"In many countries, including China, news about current affairs is not protected by copyright, but some countries have more detailed legal clauses defining 'current affairs'", a source at www.hc260.com said. "What we transmitted from CNS was only news about current affairs."

Zhang dispute that claim, saying that the re-transmitted items went beyond the mere facts of current affairs and many items included the opinions of CNS editorial staff.

(Xinhua News Agency April 16, 2008)