The first Chinese Film and Television Copyright Auction kicked off in Beijing on Saturday. [Photo/Xinhua]

The first Chinese Film and Television Copyright Auction, which kicked off in Beijing on Saturday (Oct 15), recently announced it had attracted a total of 860 literary works to be auctioned for film and television copyrights. Among them, 682 are plays and the remaining 146 are novels.

The literary works vary widely and cover nearly all genres, including the historical novel, romance, espionage and science fiction.

Most of the works are from the Chinese mainland, though some are from overseas countries and regions, such as Singapore.

The Writers Publishing House, the International Copyright Exchange, a State-owned copyright protection and trading center, and Yongkang City's municipal government organized the auction, and invited many publishing houses, film/television companies, and literary websites to participate.

The three organizers also announced on Saturday that they would team up to establish a film/television and literature copyright exchange center, so that the more than 170 companies and institutes in Yongkang — a city famous for its support for film and television industry development — could make good use of literary copyrights and writers resources held by the Writers Publishing House and the International Copyright Exchange.