BEIJING, Feb. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Having shut down Napster and other illegal file swapping Websites based in the United States, the global music industry is now looking to do the same in China where downloading of MP3 music files is rampant.

    Warner music became the first recording company in Shanghai to take operators of a Website to court over illegal downloading of songs. The Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court began hearing the case yesterday.

    Warner music, the Taiwan branch of Time Warner, is accusing Shanghai Rongshuxia Computer Co Ltd of infringing on its copyrights by allowing surfers to download 10 songs by Chinese pop star Na Ying.

    Warner music is asking the court to ban Rongshuxia from allowing people to download music from its Website (www.rongshu.com) and make a public apology. It is also asking for 250,000 yuan (US$30,120) in compensation and legal fees.

    The global music giant said it discovered last March that Rongshuxia was illegally allowing users to download Na Ying's songs, all of which were originally on her CD "I am not an angel."

    In court yesterday, the company offered an original edition of the Chinese pop star's CD as well as a testimonial issued by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, to prove it made the disc and owned the distribution rights to the songs.

    Rongshuxia said it put the songs on its site last year as part of a cooperative promotion with a local radio station and stopped offering the downloads in April.

    "We are running a literature Website, not a music one. We didn't expect to earn anything from the download service," said Ji Nuo, Rongshuxia's attorney.

    Compensation for the songs could play a key role in the case. Warner has suggested compensation should be set at 99 US cents per download, a number based on the price of buying songs from Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store, the most successful legal song downloading site on the Internet.

    "If music lovers download the songs from the Website, they surely won't buy CDs," said Liu Ping, the attorney representing Warner Music.

    (Shanghai Daily)