The 88-year-old younger brother of China's last emperor Aisin
Giorro Pu Yi (1906-1967) has lost a lawsuit in which he claimed
copyright of the emperor's image.
The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court, in its final
verdict, ruled that in his change from last emperor to an ordinary
citizen of new China, Aisin Giorro Pu Yi's life was closely
connected with China's history.
As he was a public figure, exhibitors had not infringed upon his
image rights through showing photo exhibitions of Pu Yi's life and
political activities.
Pu Yi's brother Jin Youzhi, with the original name of Aisin
Giorro Pu Ren, discovered in November last year that photos of Pu
Yi were displayed at an exhibition for six years in the Forbidden
City, the imperial residence in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing
(1644-1911) dynasties.
He took the exhibitors to court, saying that the image rights of
the deceased were severely violated, the immediate relatives were
greatly hurt and his right to use Pu Yi's image was also infringed
upon.
He had asked the exhibitors to stop the exhibitions, issue a
statement of apology in at least five national newspapers, and pay
the relevant legal costs.
One of the defendants, Wang Qingxiang, a research fellow at
northeast China's Jilin Provincial Academy of Social Sciences,
questioned Jin's qualification as a plaintiff, citing evidence
showing that Pu Yi was not the biological brother of Jin, who was
in fact adopted as the stepson of the Qing emperor in 1908.
Jin's case was first rejected on July 14 by the Beijing
Dongcheng District People's Court before the appeal went to Beijing
No. 2 Intermediate People's Court.
In 1908, when Pu Yi was almost three years old, he ascended the
imperial throne as the 10th ruler of the Qing Dynasty, the last
dynasty in China's feudal system. Less than three years later, the
1911 Revolution against the Qing Dynasty broke out forcing Pu Yi to
abdicate.
After being expelled from Beijing's imperial palace in
November1924, Pu Yi and his family and entourage fled to Tianjin. Pu Yi died of illness in Beijing in
1967.
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(Xinhua News Agency December 12, 2006)
