Vapor
A special campaign this year targeting
copyright infringement on the internet has been fruitful and achieved
good legal and social effects, a copyright official said on Thursday.
From
May to November, copyright law enforcement agencies at all levels,
supported by cyberspace and information administrators as well as public
security departments, cracked down on copyright infringement,
especially in films, social media and images, said Yu Cike, director of
copyright administration of the Publicity Department of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China.
Authorities
deleted 1.1 million links related to piracy, seized 10.7 million
pirated products and investigated 450 cases of online copyright
infringement, of which 160 were criminal cases and involved 524 million
yuan ($75 million), he said.
The
campaign, called Sword Net 2019, was launched in April by the National
Intellectual Property Administration, the Cyberspace Administration of
China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the
Ministry of Public Security.
With an
aim to strengthen copyright law enforcement and supervision, it
particularly targeted independent social media accounts that reproduced,
plagiarized or tampered with news content produced by mainstream media
outlets without their authorization.
It
also cracked down on filming and recording in cinemas, the spread of
pirated films or television programs via social media, e-commerce
platforms and cloud storage services, the abuse of rights and false
authorization in the image market, as well as other copyright
infringements in music, short videos, audiobooks and animation.
By the end of the campaign, Yu said authorities in various provinces,
including Hebei, Zhejiang, Henan and Guangdong, had handled over 30
cases regarding the filming and recording of movies in cinemas and had
arrested more than 200 suspects. They had also busted 418 websites and
applications that spread pirated films.
One of the major cases included a Beijing company releasing news content
through its network called "Xinhua Silk Road". The content was found to
have infringed the copyright of 140 written works and 110 photographic
works owned by Xinhua News Agency. The company was fined 200,000 yuan in
July by the Beijing cultural law enforcement agency.
In
September, authorities also set up eight inspection teams and visited
14 provinces to directly supervise and handle 90 major cases of
infringement, he added.
Yu said
these results helped regulate copyright on the internet and ensured a
good cyberspace environment, especially for the celebration of the 70th
anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China this
year.
Sun Xiaohui, deputy director
of the Ministry of Public Security's public security administration,
said the ministry will continue its tough line on copyright
infringement, improve its level of investigation, summarize successful
experiences from previous cases, make full use of big data to improve
efficiency and work closely with other departments to push forward
practical regulations related to the application of laws.
Source: China Daily
Editor:Vapor