CA orders Chinese firm, local partners to pay P24.7 M for copyright infringement

A Chinese firm and its three local business partners in the Philippines are obliged to pay P24.7 million to a Filipino publishing company for copyright infringement, according to the Court of Appeals on Sunday.

In a decision made on April 11, 2019, the 11th Division of the appellate court "upheld in its entirety the December 8, 2017 decision" rendered by Manila City RTC Branch 24 Judge Ma. Victoria A. Soriano-Villadolid.

The  M.Y. Intercontinental Trading Corp. (MITC), its owner Tedwin T. Uy, Allianz Marketing and Publishing Corp. (Allianz), and China-based firm Fujian New Technology Color Making and Printing Company, LTD (Fujian) were ordered to pay the St. Mary’s Publishing Corporation (SMPC) and its owner Jerry Vicente S. Catabijan the damages incurred by the illegal act.

The China-based company and three local partners previously sought for the reversal of the Manila City RTC's decision but the CA "found no merit" in the said petition.

Aside from the payment, the CA has also ordered the defendants to halt the "printing, copying, importing, revising, distributing, reproducing, promoting and selling of pertinent textbooks of SMPC and copies thereof, including copies of the revised editions or other formatted versions of said works."

The copyright infringement stemmed from a printing contract between the SMPC and China-based firm Fujian.

The SMPC issued Fujian an authority to print its textbooks in September, October, and November 2009.

The books were supposed to be printed in Fujian's factory in China and delivered to the SMPC. Fujian, however, instead partnered with other firms to import, market, and sell SMPC's books in the Philippines.

"While defendant Fujian is a foreign corporation based in  China,  its act constitute[s] copyright infringement pursuant to the Berne Convention for the Protection  of  Literary  and  Artistic  Works  on  1 August 1951, among the members of which is China which became a party to the Convention on 15 October 1992," the CA added. — Dona Magsino/BM, GMA News