Chinese internet cafe copyright case

China Daily reports that a consortium of 5 Hollywood studios is suing jetboo.com and Eastday Bar in China for copyright infringement. Jetboo.com appears to be an online cinema which claims to have copyright authorisation for more than 30,000 films, while Eastday Bar is a chain of internet cafes. It is alleged that Eastday Bar installed software allowing customers to access 13 films and that Jetboo.com helped them.

The IPKat is a little confused by the facts here. It’s not clear if jetboo.com is (a) authorised at all or (b) authorised, but only for certain types of uses. While the IPKat’s not generally for making those who provide internet services (in the widest meaning of the world) liable, he thinks there’s a stronger case for it if the providers deliberately set out to attract customers by making copyright infringement possible on their premises.