The Longhui Computer Costume School used to have a website selling pirated professional software.

The copyright administration of Hunan Province found that the website was set up in 2000 by a man surnamed Luo from Longhui County in Shaoyang, Central China's Hunan Province.

The website homepage offered "Buyi ET 2006 software" and "Zhizunbao CAD" at a "low price". It also gave ways to contact Luo, the process of purchase and his bank account number.

But the website was not registered with the telecommunication department.

An interested netizen selected the costume CAD software, contacted Luo via the instant messenger on the website, negotiated the price and details of the transaction, and remitted the money to his account.

Luo used to mail the software and the dongle (needed to use the software) to the buyers.

The software displayed and sold on Luo's website was downloaded from other websites or cracked by someone he entrusted without the authorization of the copyright owners.

Luo got the information on how to copy the Buyi ET 2006 software from a man surnamed Wang, a resident of Xiamen in East China's Fujian Province. He bought the dongle from Beijing Saifunai Company Chengsha Agency, and put the cracking information into the dongle to circumvent the measures the copyright owner had taken against theft.

Luo provided the service to crack the software, too.

Luo had clearly violated the copyright right, greatly disturbed the normal order of the CAD software market and severely damaged public interest.

Hunan's copyright administration fined Luo and seized his computer devices used in the illegal downloading and sale and ordered him to stop his activities.

The Yegong Fang website provided services to download pirated software. Its two domains were built and operated by a Shanghai Science and Technology Commission's subordinate company.

Most of the software provided by the website was owned by member-companies of Business Software Alliance of America (BSA), which confirmed that most of the software was pirated.

The website earned huge profits through its advertisement links to Google, instead of directly charging for the software downloads. Preliminary analysis found that the amount of the website's profit made the activity a crime.

Xiamen's copyright administration has formally transferred the case to the city's Public Security Bureau for investigation.

Renhe Bookstore was a website used specially to post information on pirated books and their sale.

The design and information on the site was copied from other similar websites.

On November 24, 2006, Jinan authorities in East China's Shandong Province formed an investigation team, and divided it into two groups. The first raided a cybercaf in Jinan's Huaiyin District where the website server was located to collect evidence. The other seized Wang Runjun, who operated and maintained the website.

The founders of the website, Liu Shuying and Liu Shuhua, were detained, and a thorough probe launched into their affairs.

Both of them were brought to justice after police searched their homes and seized a computer used for the illegal sales and their account books.

Liu Shuhua and Liu Shuying admitted that that they had paid 4,000 yuan ($512.8) to build the Renhe Bookstore site in September 2005. They used to post catalogs and price lists on the website and had opened a special account and communication method for the sale of the books online.

By the time the case came to light, they had made 12,000 yuan ($1,530) in profit from a sale of 43,366 yuan ($5551.3).

Their monetary condition didn't allow them to build or hire a special warehouse to store the books, they said. So they bought the books from the Yingxiongshan culture market in Jinan after getting orders online.

The copyright administration of Jinan has closed the website, fined the owners and confiscated their illegal income.

Extra Day Theatre provided online playing and downloading facilities for pirated movies. The radio, television, culture, press and publication administration of Jinhua in East China's Zhejiang Province found that the site was built by Jinhua Extra Day Information Technology Co, and its legal reprensentative was Bao Wenjun.

The company had one IP address, three servers and two dedicated gigabyte lines in a machine room.

Motion Picture Association of America's member companies own the rights to movies distributed on and downloaded from the Net.

After Bao admitted playing and downloading more than 300 movies without authorization, the Jinhua authorities ordered the telecommunication department to disconnect the links and fined him 50,000 yuan ($6,410).

The All-round Download website used to download pirated textbooks. Its activities were not only illegal, but were also causing trouble to buyers because the pirated books contained a lot of mistakes.

The copyright administration of South China's Guangdong Province detained Lai Weibo, a resident of Xingning in the province, who operated the site. His server was in Zhanjiang Branch of Guangdong Telecommunication Co.

The authorities ordered Lai to stop his activities and warned him that he could face serious legal action if he didn't remove the illegal contents from the server.

The authorities also ordered the telecom company to disconnect the site's access to infringing materials.

China Daily

(China Daily 02/09/2007 page4)