"Super Girls" producer accused of infringing intellectual property rights

A Chinese intellectual property right group planned to sue producer of "Super Girls," an "American Idol"-type television pop star contest, which made a phenomenon in China's TV audience rating in summer.

"Contestants in the commercial TV program chose a large number of famous Chinese and English songs without applying for the rights to use them," said Ma Jichao, director of the Legal Department of the Chinese Association of Music Intellectual Property Rights.

Ma said that Tianyu Entertainment Media Co., producer of the contest used the songs for commercial purpose. Winners from the contest are still using the songs on a nationwide promotion tour, which seriously infringed the copyrights of the songs.

Ma said that his association would lodge a law suit against the "Super Girls" producer and claim for a 500,000-yuan (62,500 US dollars) compensation, if the company made no further response within this month.

Some 200 million people tuned in to Hunan Satellite Television, with headquarters in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province, for the live, three-hour finale of "Super Girls 2005" in August, which ended with Li Yuchun, 21, being named champion of the contest after having garnered over 3.52 million votes.

The contest, which began half a year ago, with the participation of 150,000 women above the age of 16 from across the country. It has become talk of the town.

Ma said that his association sent a letter to urge the company to pay for the use of copyright in September 20, and sat down for negotiations with the company till Oct. 9 without reaching any agreement.

Ma told the media that a "Super Girls" evening show was staged in Oct. 9 in Beijing. Most of the Chinese songs sung at the show infringed the copyright managed by the association, and the English songs infringed the copyright in concerned copyright organizations in China's Hong Kong, Taiwan and some European and American countries, which have signed exchange management agreements with their Chinese counterpart.

Source: Xinhua