A publishing house and a sales company were taken to court in Beijing this week for infringing customers rights by surreptitiously inserting commercial advertisements in DVD disks of a film.

A customer surnamed Hou sued Liaoning Culture & Art Audio Publishing House and Beijing Century Zhuoyue Info-Tech Co. for inserting commercial advertisements in the film disk he bought. The ads cannot be skipped.

A court in Beijing's Chaoyang District heard the case on Thursday, Friday's People's Daily reported.

Hou bought the DVD disk of "The DaVinci Code" on www.joyo.com, a popular online shopping website run by Beijing Century Zhuoyue Info-Tech Co, for 24.8 yuan (US$3.22) last December.

He was surprised to discover that medical advertisements ran for 96 seconds before the film started.

However, there was no information from the publisher on the external packaging that the DVD contained advertisements, and the introduction to the disk on www.joyo.com did not mention them either.

Hou argued the two defendants had withheld the truth and infringed the customer's legitimate rights and interests. Hou asked that the DVD be returned to the seller or publisher and claimed compensation of 49.6 yuan.

The "coercive" consumption of ads spoils many customers' appreciation of a movie, according to Hou.

The publisher was of a different opinion. "The 96-second advertisements do not affect the film which lasts for 174 minutes, " said the accused publisher. "China's laws and regulations do not prohibit inserting advertising in a film, and the publishing house has no legal obligation to notify customers of the advertising."

"What's more, the advertisements help to reduce the price of disks and this benefits customers," the representative of the publisher added.

But Hou repudiated the notion that advertising should be allowed to invade every aspect of citizens' lives and insisted information about ads should be clearly marked on the disk packaging and on the seller's website.

"The development of the video industry should not be based on the infringement of customers' legitimate rights," Hou maintained.

The court has reserved its judgment.