Sohu.com fined $140,000
p2pnet.net News:- Whenever entertainment cartel members are caught red-handed price fixing, bribing people for air time, organizing fake movie reviews, and so on, they always make sure that when they’re forced to make reparation, included is a phrase to the effect they don’t have to actually admit they did anything wrong.
Hollywood’s MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) was able to use its weight to get a Chinese court to order Sohu.com to pay $140,000 for allegedly distributing Hollywood movies online.
And ironically, “A subsidiary of Sohu.com Inc. also must publish an acknowledgment of wrongdoing, the Motion Picture Association said,” according The Associated Press.
Meanwhile, "the movie industry’s claims that this type of piracy in China cost them $244 million last year is tempered by the fact that later on in the article they admit that a large part of the reason so many American movies are pirated in China is that the Chinese government has regulations in place that limit the number of US films that can be shown in the country," says Techdirt, adding:
"They even admit that half of the movies Sohu was distributing weren’t even available in Chinese theaters due to these restrictions. In other words, they didn’t actually lose any money at all on those films. It could even help them to have these films distributed this way, since it increases the demand for US movies, and could put more pressure on the government to allow more movies to come into the country legitimately."
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
Also See:
The Associated Press – Chinese movie website is fined, December30, 2006
Techdirt – How Do You Lose Money On Movies Not Even Released?, December 29, 2006
