Chinese Video Streaming Site Gets Tiny Penalty After Pirating Ultraman

"Don't pirate me, bitches."

One of China’s leading video-streaming sites, PPTV, has been ordered to pay fines by a court after it effectively pirated the Japanese kids series Ultraman (pictured right) on its site last year. The Shanghai court ordered PPTV, owned by PPLive, to pay a fine of 25,000 RMB (US$4,000) for its infringement – but the local rights holder says that penalty is far too small.

The iconic Japanese children’s sci-fi is managed in China by Shanghai-based SCLA. It made notarized evidence of PPTV’s piracy after the whole 52-episode [1] series was added to the video site on January 26th, 2011. By June 24th of the same year, the entire batch of Ultraman shows were removed, shortly after SCLA had issued a take-down notice. At the time, the rights holder offered PPTV a two-year non-exclusive license to stream the series for $10.4 million over two years, but the offer was not taken up.

The court, in its verdict, maintained that 25,000 RMB was sufficient considering the videos were offered for free, accompanied instead by adverts. SCLA is demanding a somewhat larger 150,000 RMB ($24,000) in compensation instead, and will likely appeal.

Ultraman is wildly popular with kids in China as well as across the region, despite its shaky 1960s-era set and special effects. As for the small penalty, I’m wondering if that’s a result of lax enforcement of intellectual property rights, or an aging judge who doesn’t understand how lucrative online ads – or how expensive licensed TV shows – actually are.

[Source: Techweb – article in Chinese]