According to Yu Youxian, the crackdown on all kinds of piracy is a common task that all responsible governments throughout the world now face. This is also a thorny matter. The Chinese government attaches great importance to protecting intellectual property copyrights. One of the key measures that the Chinese government adopted was a program to crackdown on pornography and piracy. It has been 11 years since this task of cracking down on pornography and piracy began. It has no precedent in the world that 14 departments of the State Council and the Beijing Municipal Government co-established a national working group to especially fight against pornography and piracy. Since 1995, collective action has seized 60 million illegally published books and 140 million illicit audiovisual products, most of which are pirated products. Furthermore, 90 production lines for pirated CDs have been closed down. This has struck a heavy blow at the pirates.

Gui Xiaofeng says that the crackdown on pirated CDs has been the main focus in the task of cracking down on pornography and piracy in recent years in China. The task has been carried out widely in 4 phases.

First, the central government has attached great importance to standardizing the manufacturing process, which specializes in copying audiovisual products. By imposing harsh punishment on manufacturers who illegally produce pornographic and pirated CDs and roundly carrying out a system of supervision of copyright and SID systems, the working group has strengthened the regular management of production lines, and has basically stopped manufacturers from producing pirated CDs.

Next, since 1996 a system of rewarding the persons, who report the illegal activities, has been adopted to uncover illegal CD-product lines. The measure has heavily hammered the illegal CD production within China. Up until now, 90 illicit CD-product lines have been uncovered in Guangdong, Fujian, Hubei and other provinces. Currently, 70 percent of all pirated audiovisual products come from overseas, and China now is the victim most affected by international illicit pirating activities.

Because of increasing rampancy of smuggling CDs from overseas, China has cracking down on smuggling CDs for several years, with the Customs Office playing the major role since 1997. During the past three years, Chinese Customs have seized over 50 million pirated CDs. In the biggest smuggling case ever intercepted, 4.52 million CDs were seized at one time.

Since 1999, China has strengthened cooperation with foreign countries and organizations against piracy. Meanwhile, the system of keeping contact among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao governments was established to jointly strike at piracy. Currently, an all-round pattern of combating organized illegal piracy has gradually been formed in China. Especially, "The Year 2000 Actions Against Piracy" is being carried out all over China. This demonstrates China's consistent stance and determined resolution to protect intellectual property rights and to crack down on piracy.

Gui Xiaofeng especially pointed out that CD-product lines and materials are mainly produced in the developed countries. Some factories in these countries even sent technicians to install CD-product lines bought by illegal piracy groups and guided their production. In the worldwide anti-piracy campaign, the factories owning the advanced technologies should assume their obligations to civilization and progress. He said, “We hope that the factories of CD-product lines can participate in the efforts to strike at piracy, and that they will cooperate with legal producers who have production approval rather than illicit piratical organizations.”

(Guangming Daily)