This is the city's first case where the victim in an intellectual property rights dispute filed a civil litigation seeking financial redressal after the court had imposed punishment on the violators, court officials said.

Ha Ling, a book dealer from Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, and Li Weiwei, a book dealer from Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, were told to pay 60,000 yuan each to the publisher.

The Shaanxi Hanzhong Printing House, whom Ha and Li paid to print 5,000 pirated copies of the latest edition of Cihai from December 1999 to February 2000, was ordered to compensate 380,000 yuan to the plaintiff.

It was also fined 60,000 yuan.

"We suffered a great loss because of the piracy. The poor quality of the pirated Cihai also tarnished our image," said Li Weiguo, director of the publishing house.

In its ruling last August, the court sentenced Ha to four years in jail and fined him 50,000 yuan, while Li was given a three-year prison term and fined 40,000 yuan.

"Piracy is a very severe problem and has serious consequence on copyright owners and legal publishers. We sought compensation to protect our legal rights and warn violators," Li added, alluding to the publisher's decision to file a civil suit last September, seeking 996,000 yuan for compensation from the three pirates.

Ha and Li sold 2,500 Cihai copies at a book exchange fair in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, in April 2000, allowing the pirated copies to flow into 15 provinces and cities across the nation.

Cihai -- three editions of which were published in 1979, 1989 and 1999 with a total print run of 6 million copies -- is the most respected and official dictionary of Chinese words. The latest edition was issued by the Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House in October 1999 with 600,000 copies, with 500,000 of them being sold, yielding 200 million yuan.

Last August, the city government destroyed and recycled some 3,000 pirated Cihai copies at the Zhonghua Printing House, signaling its firm intent to fight against piracy.

(Eastday.com March 25, 2003)