Cai Yingbo

A POWERFUL Hollywood trade association has sued Shenzhen-based Xunlei, one of China's largest download service providers, over movie piracy and is seeking more than 7 million yuan (US$1 million) in damages and costs.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a trade association comprising the the "big six" U.S. film studios, on Friday sued Xunlei Networking Technology Co. for allowing users of its file-sharing service to illegally download hundreds of movies despite 78 warnings from group's lawyers.

The MPAA claimed Xunlei had facilitated the unauthorised downloads of hundreds of Hollywood movies produced by its members, including "Spiderman 3," "War of the Worlds" and "Miami Vice," from third-party Web sites using its peer-to-peer network.

It said in a statement Friday that the plaintiffs were also seeking a public acknowledgement of the infringements as well as a pledge from Xunlei to refrain from future infringement.Xunlei could not be reached for comment by press time yesterday.

Tang Jiangtao, a senior Shenzhen lawyer, said compensation could be difficult to quantify, as there was no way of estimating business losses in this case. In addition, it would also be important to find out whether other Web sites had also provided links to download the movies and whether the plaintiffs had done enough to protect their movies from being pirated.

Xunlei lost a similar piracy lawsuit earlier this month, when it was ordered to pay 150,000 yuan in compensation to Shanghai-based Youdu Broadband Technology Co for facilitating the unauthorized downloading of the Hong Kong blockbuster "Confession of Pain."

Youdu, which had purchased the right to offer downloads of the movie, sued Xunlei last June.