The Chongqing VIP Information Service Company was ordered by the Beijing High People's Court over the weekend to stop selling materials illegally copied from more than 8,000 magazines and journals and pay compensation of 535,000 yuan (US$64,000) for violating the intellectual property rights (IPR) of more than 2,000 publishers.

The case is said to be involving the largest number of IPR violation victims in China.

The Beijing court said in its final judgment that the Chongqing company has illegally copied more than 8,000 types of publications since 1999 to make compact discs called Chinese magazine database. The company has make money from selling these discs.

The company first faced legal action at the Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court in early 2001 from 33 publishers of magazines and journals including Chinese Sciences, Chinese Social Sciences and Peking University Transaction.

After one year's investigation, the Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court judged the Chongqing company was violating the intellectual property rights of hundreds of publishers last year.

However, the Chongqing company refused to accept the judgement and appealed to a higher court.

The Beijing High People's Court judgement finally concluded the two-year-long IPR case and protected the rights of magazine publishers, said Liu Chuntian, a professor of the IPR Centre under Renmin University of China in Beijing.

According to the Copyright Law, which was put into effect in June 1991, the copyright of articles published on magazines and journals should belong to the authors and the publishers. However, there are still many copyright violations in publishing circles, Liu said.

The case will help increase the awareness of IPR protection in the publishing circle in China, especially for the magazine and journal publishers, Liu said.

(China Daily May 20, 2003)