A picture may be worth a thousand words, but is it worth 150,000 yuan ($24,600)?

That is the question being answered in a case that the Xi'an Intermediate People's Court began hearing last month, according to a report from Sanqin Daily.

Chinese novelist Jia Pingwa never thought a picture of him taken more than a decade ago would be the subject of a lawsuit, but a photographer surnamed Zhao recently took Lijiang Publishing House and a bookstore in Xi'an to court for publishing and selling eight of Jia's books with the portrait on their covers without his authorization. Jia also became a defendant.