A LOCAL company plans to sue a Beijing-based company after it allegedly lied about having the rights to an international beauty contest, committing copyright infringement in the process.
Shenzhen Jujia Film and TV Media Co. (Jujia) signed an agreement at the end of May with Beijing-based Yiting International Culture Co. (Yiting), which claimed to be the organizer of the 41st Miss Tourism International (MTI), to carry out the global final of the contest.
The Beijing company’s name bears striking similarity: Miss Tourism International Industry Association.
Jujia agreed to pay 2.4 million yuan (US$392,160) for the right to undertake the final and Yiting promised to bring contestants from at least 50 countries to compete in the final in Shenzhen. Yiting was also in charge of inviting judges, according to the agreement.
The president of Jujia, Qiu Tian, was optimistic about inviting sponsors to the competition.
However, at the end of July, Qiu received a letter from the organizing committee of a beauty contest also called Miss Tourism International, accusing Qiu’s company of running a fake competition.
The letter said the authentic competition was initiated in Malaysia and has been held 20 times, even in China several times.
Qiu was shocked and searched for information about Yiting on the Internet, finding many negative reports about the authenticity of the competition Yiting claimed to organize.
Qiu then asked Li Zhe, who is in charge of Yiting, for videos of the previous MTI competitions it organized. Li didn’t respond to the request.
Yiting brought 50 women from around the world to Shenzhen on Nov. 30 for the competition.
Qiu found that these women only held tourist visas, which means they were not allowed to work or take part in any profitable activity in China.
Qiu doubted whether these women were professional models hired by Yiting.
“I paid Yiting 1.4 million yuan. They could have used it to pay these models,” said Qiu.
Qiu managed to obtain these women’s passports and reported to police.
However, police didn’t accept Qiu’s accusation of fraud, so he plans to lodge a civil lawsuit against Yiting.
“I don’t want to respond to (doubts). You can write whatever you want,” Li told Southern Metropolis Daily.
(Martin Li)
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