By Angela Xu

A well-known pop duo was in court yesterday accusing Carrefour, a DVD publisher and a disc duplicating company of producing and selling musical DVDs containing its songs without permission.

Chen Tao and Hu Haiquan, the two members of Yu Quan, are seeking a public apology and 220,000 yuan (US$27,500) in compensation from the three defendants. They are also asking the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court to order the destruction of any remaining copies of the disc.

The pop stars said they bought a pirated DVD containing 25 of their songs along with video images at Carrefour's Gubei outlet on May 14.

The disc was published by Liaoning Broadcast and TV Audio Visual Publishing House, and Zhanjiang Huali Jinyin Video Co Ltd was in charge of duplicating the discs, the court heard.

The pop stars said they never gave the two companies permission to use their songs, and claim to have lost a lot of money due to the piracy of their work.

The court played the 25 songs from their legal CDs and the allegedly pirated DVD during the hearing yesterday for comparison.

Lawyers for the three defendants noted that the video for five of the songs on the questionable DVD are from a televised performance by Yu Quan. While they admitted they don't have the right to reproduce the video, or the songs, they said the TV station owns the rights, not Yu Quan, so the pop group has no legal basis to sue.

They didn't offer any evidence to prove the TV station owns all the rights to the performance, however.

They also argued that there is no proof the songs on the DVD were actually sung by Yu Quan, although the pop group did write at least a few of the tunes.

While the defendants have asked to have the singing on the questionable DVD compared with Yu Quan's CDs to prove whether or not it is the duo singing, that test has been delayed because the defendants haven't paid for it. The court will hold another hearing after that test is completed.