While an article in the Wall Street Journal stated that the ruling is "the biggest defeat" for China in a long-running battle over copyright protection for American books, music and movies, He Weiwen, a director of the Sino-American Economic Society, argued that the US only gets a temporary win in the case, but has not won the market.

"The ruling, even if finally implemented, has a limited impact on China's publications and audiovisual product market. The competition in the domestic film market is more fierce than Hollywood expects," the scholar said.

Xue Lei, an expert on international law at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies, said any implementation of the ruling, if finalized by the WTO, would still take a long time.

"China could appeal and request arbitration to fight an unfavorable judgment. The whole process will take 2-3 years. Even if it enters the implementation phase, the ruling still needs to be discussed and passed by the State Council and the National People's Congress," he said.

The US may opt for unilateral actions under WTO rules to impose trade sanctions on China. Both countries, however, would bear in mind the full spectrum of bilateral ties.

Xue also suggested that China could wisely circumvent conflicting with WTO treaties by avoiding evident discriminative clauses in legislation.

The call to scrap the import quota on foreign films could also be heard from some domestic media industry players.

"We'd love to become a film importer, given our sound knowledge of the domestic market and consumers. We have been waiting for a government decision and will study the potential," said Ivy Chen, a distribution manager for a leading media group.

"But even if the capping on imports is removed, foreign films won't be flooding in, because we have to be very cautious to consider all the risks and make every import profitable," Chen said.