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Five American movie studios (20th Century Fox, Disney, Paramount, Columbia and Universal) have launched six lawsuits against Jeboo.com and Eastday Bar in China for copyright infringement.

Jeboo.com is accused of broadcasting, without permission, movies to internet café customers, which is a potential violation of the intellectual property rights of the movie companies.

It would appear that Jeboo.com is the largest online cinema running with copyright authorisation for more than 30,000 films. Eastday Bar is a chain of internet cafes, and is alleged to have installed software which allowed customers to pick from a range of 13 Hollywood movies. The movie studios are accusing both Jeboo.com and Eastday Bar of copyright infringement.

However, Jeboo.com maintains that they have always abided by copyright regulations, and that it has been granted formal copyright agreements and authorisation to display the allegedly infringing material.

There appears to be a strong case here for making providers of internet services liable if they deliberately set out to attract customers by making copyright infringements possible on their premises.