Big Seven DVD firms get billions from China

April 29, 2003

The seven licensors of the DVD format are
awaiting a big amount of money from Chinese DVD hardware manufacturers. The
companies had a dispute with China because the companies in this country sold
DVD hardware without paying the license fees to use the DVD format.

THE BIG DVD manufacturers have managed to extract Â¥3 billion from
Chinese companies that exported players worldwide, the Nihon Keizai
Shimbun reports today. Another group of manufacturers, Philips, Pioneer
and Sony, are also successfully pursuing claims, said the paper.

That follows a legal dispute over
patents and royalties pursued by Toshiba, Hitachi and five other firms
including AOL Time Warner, Mitsubishi and Big Blue. The paper said that
the big seven have concluded deals with over 40 DVD manufacturers in
China, while another 20 or so manufacturers are expected to settle
soon.

While being a good move for the companies, this is likely to
rise the price of cheap Chinese DVD players, as TheInquirer
reports.

Source: TheInquirer