A Guangdong-based music and video company has filed 50 lawsuits with the Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court against companies it claims are producing and selling pirated versions of its goods.

The court accepted 23 of the lawsuits filed by Guangdong Meika Music and Video Co Ltd, and passed the others off to the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court and Pudong New Area People's Court.

The No.2 court heard nine of the lawsuits yesterday.

The company is demanding the defendants stop violating its intellectual property rights immediately and pay 8,000 yuan (US$987) in compensation for each of the pirated products. It is also demanding a public apology from each of the 50 defendants.

The suits revolved around 10 CDs of songs by famous pop singers from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

More than half of the defendants were also those in lawsuits previously filed by another audio and video company - Guangdong Freeland.

"We have filed altogether some 1,000 lawsuits on the Chinese mainland over piracy and won most of them," said Zhong Yigang, the lawyer for Guangdong Meika." In addition to getting consumers to pay attention to protection of intellectual property rights and buy copyrighted things, we also want to cover part of our losses in this way."

Lu Weimin, chief justice of the IPR division at the No. 2 court, said companies can cover some of their losses by filing a large number of suits against pirates, although it isn't always easy to win or to get paid.

"IPR cases are an increasing trend in recent years," he said.

One of the defendants in a case heard yesterday didn't bother showing up for the trial -- a common occurrence in such cases.

"Some small company owners will just shut down the business because it is cheaper to open a new company than paying the compensation," said Liu Chunquan, a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property.

"But the copyright owners have to file lawsuits to frighten some pirate sellers and get some compensation back from some large companies. Otherwise, more counterfeits will appear," he said.

(Shanghai Daily November 29, 2005)