Jeboo.com, one of the biggest Chinese online theater Web sites, has filed a suit against five major US movie companies as well as the Motion Picture Association of America.

Jeboo.com said the defendants' announcement on March 6 breached its honor and claimed a total of one million yuan (US$141,751) compensation at Beijing No.2 Intermediate People's Court. The court will hear the case in the near future, according to China News Service.

Just months ago, the defendants, which included Walt Disney, Columbia and Universal, sued Jeboo.com twice over piracy for allegedly airing US movies online without authorization, but settled out of court.

Jeboo.com reportedly paid for the so-called unauthorized movies found in two Internet cafes in Shanghai, even though the videos in dispute were later confirmed not to have come from Jeboo.com. Jeboo.com paid to show its sincerity and to end the dispute as quickly as possible, the report said.

However, the five US movie giants and the MPAA issued statements on MPAA's official Web site, saying Jeboo.com had stopped its infringement and had apologized for its illegal activities. The statements quoted Frank Rittman, Vice President and Asia-Pacific Regional Counsel for MPAA, as saying: "Services like Jeboo have profited from copyright infringement and undermined the development of legitimate online services."

Jeboo.com said the statements severely harmed its honor and its image as China's biggest authorized online media provider.

(Shanghai Daily March 25, 2008)