A Chinese science fiction writer on Wednesday took US movie
giant 20th Century Fox Film Corporation to court over allegations
of copyright infringement, in the same week that the U.S. moved to
file WTO cases against China over intellectual property rights.
The Intermediate People's Court of Dongying, in eastern China's
Shandong province, began hearing the case at 8:30?AM
Wednesday.
The writer, 43-year-old Li Jianmin, said that 20th Century Fox's
movie The Day After Tomorrow copied the creative
conception and the plots of two plays he completed in 2001 and
2002.
Li said The Day After Tomorrow, the blockbuster movie
in which much of the world is destroyed by disasters caused by
global warming, has 308 scenes that were described in his
plays.
Li lodged the lawsuit against 20 Century Fox, director Roland
Emmerich and five Chinese companies that imported, distributed and
showed the movie at the Dongying court in March last year. The
court accepted the suit last April.
(Xinhua News Agency April 11, 2007)