June 22, 2000
A press release by the Office of National
Anti-Piracy and Pornography Working Committee,
P.R.C.

China's War Against Copyright Piracy

A brief introduction of China's battle against pornographic and illegal publications

China's war against copyright piracy features high in its agenda to stamp out pornographic and illegal publications.

With the reform and opening initiated in 1978, China's publication market has become increasingly prosperous. Unfortunately, copyright pirates, lured by huge profits, have also been more rampant.

In response, the Chinese Government has for 11 years staged a series of nationwide campaigns against pornographic and illegal publications since 1989.

The central government has each year allocated a special fund to assist this effort. Special organizations have been set up at both regional and national levels to tackle pornographic and illegal publications.

The National Anti-Piracy and Pornography Working Committee (NAPWC) is in charge of the nation's overall effort in this regard. The committee, composed of 14 central government, Party departments as well as the Municipal Government of Beijing, has its general office in the Press and Publication Administration.

Since 1994, the NAPWC and its general office, under the direction of the State Council, have for six consecutive years organized massive concentrated enforcement action (CEA) across the country to straighten out publication market.

Incomplete statistics indicated that in five CEAs between 1994 and 1999, the authorities investigated at least 14,000 cases, seized 60 million illegally published books (76 per cent of them pirated ones), 140 million audio-visual products (95.5 per cent of them pirated ones) and some 7 million pornographic publications, plus closing 450 distributing centres, 32,500 unlicensed stalls and shops for illegal publications.

China's efforts have been well-received at home and abroad.

The seven measures against copyright piracy

China lists fighting copyright piracy as a key part of its overall action against pornographic and illegal publications for the following reasons:

First, according to the Supreme People's Court's Interpretations of Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in the Hearing of Criminal Cases of Illegal Publications, copyright piracy, which infringes upon the legal civil right of the copyright owners, belongs to the realm of illegal publication;

Second, the copyright piracy has in recent years become a complicated, trans-regional and international problem and consequently cannot be possibly contained by a single department alone, thus demanding the involvement of the NAPWC, a trans-departmental organization capable of coordinating actions in different regions;

Third, different from the copyright administrative departments, the NAPWC mainly handles the organized copyright piracy crimes.

China has included copyright piracy into its campaigns against pornographic and illegal publications since 1989. The fight against copyright piracy has highlighted China's CEAs since the autumn of 1994. In dealing with copyright piracy, China has employed the following seven strategies::

First, straightening out the market. While confiscating pirated publications in the market, the authorities are also regulating their circulating centres. Since 1995, law enforcement departments have been engaged in cleaning the small-commodity wholesale markets, the electronic products markets and household appliances markets where pirated audio-visual products, computer softwares and books are most likely to be spotted. More than 20 markets of national notoriety, including Baigou in Hebei, Zhengzhou in Henan, Wusheng in Hubei, Huangnijie in Hunan, Yiwu in Zhejiang, Linyi in Shandong, Linfen in Shanxi, Yifa and Zoumagong in Guangdong, Xiliu in Liaoning and Lanxin in Gansu have been closed.

Second, shutting down the venues where the pirated audio-visual products can be shown to the public for profit. In the 1995 winter CEA, the authorities closed showrooms for VCDs that had not been authorized. By late February, 1992, more than 3,000 VCD showrooms were closed nationwide. Meanwhile, the authorities had reduced the number of video parlors and requested that video libraries be only open to professionals for research and education purposes.

Third, strengthening the management of enterprises engaged in duplicating compact discs and books. During May and November of 1996, the Press and Publication Administration revoked the licenses of nine enterprises for duplicating audio-visual products because of their involvement in producing pornographic and pirated compact discs. They included Jiangsu Baodie, Shenzhen's Zhongqiao and Guangzhou's Cailing.

Meanwhile, the Press and Publication Administration and State Copyright Administration have issued a notice demanding that inspectors be sent and stationed in the country's 36 enterprises with a licence to duplicate compact discs. To prevent piracy, these enterprises have been asked to imprint SID codes on their molds.

The printing firms have also been targeted by the authorities, who reduced the number of legal printing firms by 33,148, shut down 3,723 unlicensed printing firms and cracked down on 1,167 cases involving illegal publication, thus largely cutting down the number of possible printers of pirated books.

Fourth, offering handsome rewards for informers of illegal compact disc presses. In the autumn of 1996, the Guangdong Provincial Government issued the rules on rewarding informants of illegal compact disc presses. Verified informant can get 300,000 yuan (US$36,100) for each presses reported. The public have reacted warmly to this policy. Since September 1996, the authorities have altogether seized 90 illegal compact disc presses in Guangdong, Fujian and Hubei provinces. The reward money for informants has reached 12 million yuan (US$1.445 million) -- the sum would have been much higher had not some people chosen to forfeit the rewards. In one instance, the national office of NAPWC gave an informant 1.2 million yuan (US$144,500) in award money for reporting four illegal compact disc presses. So far most of the seized presses have been smuggled from European countries. Some producers of the presses even sent technicians to assist the assembling of the presses. The production capacity of the seized 90 presses is at least 630 compact discs a year.

Fifth, cracking down on smuggling of pirated compact discs. Since 1997, pirated compact discs in China were mostly smuggled from overseas. Responding to this new development, the customs in China have intensified the efforts against the smuggling of pirated compact discs. From 1997 to now, the customs in China have altogether seized more than 50 million compact discs, with the majority of them being pirated editions of US and European movies and musical works. Many of them are pornographic. In an operation on October 1, 1999, the Gongbei Customs in Zhuhai seized 4.52 million smuggled pirated compact discs, setting a new record for the number of smuggled compact discs seized in a single operation by the customs.

Sixth, singling out major gangs in the crackdown on copyright piracy. Major cases of copyright piracy have remained the focus of every CEA and every year the authorities have successfully cracked down on some major copyright piracy cases. In 1995, the Higher People's Court of Jiangsu sentenced Pu Xinghua, Deputy General Manager of Jiangsu Baodie Compact Disc Electronics Ltd., to 17 years' imprisonment for copyright violation and duplicating pornographic publications. In 1997, the Wuhan Intermediate People's Court sentenced Huang Junming to 13 years' imprisonment for illegally duplicating compact discs.

Guangzhou authorities have done a particularly good job in cracking down on the storage and shipment centres of compact discs, for example in 1998, they uncovered 12.15 million pirated compact discs in 62 such centres each with more than 10,000 pirated compact discs. In an operation in March 1998, Guangzhou authorities seized 1.1 million compact discs of computer softwares.

Seventh, establishing and improving the framework of laws and rules on copyright piracy. The Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China went into effect in June 1991. The revised Criminal Law of People's Republic of China, which came into effect in October, 1997 has new articles that for the first time clarifies the punishment for those infringing upon copyright. Criminals violating copyright can be sentenced to a maximum of seven years in imprisonment, plus paying fines. At the suggestion of NAPWC, the Supreme People's Court promulgated on December 23, 1998 the Interpretations of the Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in the Hearing of Criminal Cases of Illegal Publications, which gave some specific explanations on how to handle criminal cases involving illegal publications. To help spread the practice of rewarding informants of illegal compact disc presses, NAPWC, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Public Security, the Press and Publication Administration and the State Copyright Administration jointly issued a notice on the Rules on Rewarding People with Meritorious Deeds in Reporting Cases of Production and Marketing of Pornographic Products and Copyright-infringement and Other Activities of Illegal Publication. Besides mobilizing the public, such laws and rules have provided a solid legal basis supporting the country's drive against illegal and pornographic publications.

In the national drive against pornographic and illegal publications, the institutional members of NAPWC have all played an indispensable role. The national office and local branches of NAPWC, which are especially active in encouraging the participation of the public and press, orchestrating regional co-operation and soliciting the personal involvement of the top officials, are instrumental in planning, coordinating and examining the action against illegal and pornographic publications.

The four stages against pirated compact discs

China's much applauded campaign against pirated compact discs can be divided into four stages:

The first stage, starting from 1995, features regulating the operation of enterprises with licences to reproduce compact discs. All enterprises with a legal right to manufacture compact discs are required to imprint SID code on the mold. Officials from the government departments in charge of copyright protection and audio-visual products reproduction are sent to compact disc manufacturing enterprises to supervise their operation. Violators are punished severely, as a result, few licensed enterprise dare to engage in reproduction of pirated compact discs. Consequently, piracy is forced to go underground.

The second stage, starting from 1996, highlights a successful assault on underground compact disc presses. Acting on tips by award-seeking insiders, the police, in an concerted effort with other departments, has staged an immensely successful campaign against underground compact disc producers, forcing them overseas.

The third stage, beginning from 1997, is characterized by an intense struggle against pirated compact disc smugglers. The customs play an indispensable role in preventing smugglers from shipping pirated compact discs into China.

In the fourth phase that begins from 1998, the Chinese Government has significantly strengthened the co-operation with the international community in fighting piracy. In an effort to combat piracy, the law enforcement authorities in Guangdong Province regularly meet with their Hong Kong and Macao counterparts to exchange information. As a result, the anti-pornographic and illegal publications drive has made big headway in Hong Kong and Macao. As of now, the whole China has been turned into a huge battle ground against pornographic and illegal publications.

The ongoing China Anti-piracy Operation 2000

It is true that China has made enormous progress in protecting intellectual property and fighting piracy. However, lured by huge profits, pirates have been taking their chances. As a result, the smuggling of pirated compact discs is still rampant, some illegal compact discs presses are still to be uncovered in the mainland, the piracy of copyright books is still a serious problem and pirated publications are readily available in the market.

To protect the creativity of the Chinese people, maintain the order of the market and perform the country's international obligations, NAPWC has designated anti-piracy and anti-smuggling of compact discs as the major theme of this year's second phase of anti-pornographic and illegal publication, which falls between May and July. Coded China Anti-piracy Operation 2000, this concentrated operation signals Chinese Government's consistently determined stand on anti-piracy.

The public destruction of 250,000 and 5 million smuggled pirated VCDs, DVDs and computer software compact discs in Ruili and Guangzhou on May 16 and 18 raised the curtain of the Operation 2000.

At the requestion of NAPWC, in the Operation 2000 local authorities will target producers of illegal publications, the production bases of illegal publications and major gangs smuggling compact discs and pirating copyrighted publications. They are also called to redouble efforts to promote the legal education and publicize the significance of the fight against copyright piracy. Right now the anti-piracy campaign is in high gears across the country.

Recognizing that the cracking down on organized copyright piracy is a global challenge, China aspires to strengthen international co-operation.

As the world embraces the age of knowledge economy, China has also adopted a development strategy that relies heavily on science and education. Accordingly China is seeking an early accession to WTO and expanding the cultural and scientific exchange and co-operation with the rest of the world, all of which have accentuated the importance of combating production and duplication of pornographic and illegal publications as well as copyright piracy. While first and foremost, this fight will be in the best interests of pursuing a healthy development of China's publishing industry and a wholesome cultural environment, it is also China's obligation to the global community. China is willing to cooperate with international organizations and national governments in this field, stay relentless in its offensive against copyright piracy so as to better protect intellectual property.