China adopts more anti-piracy measures
January 31, 2011
Chinese government’s efforts to protect online intellectual property rights (IPR) will be strengthened this year by promoting the establishment of related industry associations, said Liu Shaodong, an official in the online broadcasting department of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT).
The number of websites that have a licence for playing video content was 594 by the end of 2010, Liu said. “We received 232 applications for the licence last year but 71 of them were rejected because they didn’t meet the standards of SARFT’s examination system,” he added.
The standard for getting licences requires that video content provided by websites should be copyrighted and there should be a proper internal management system and enough staff.
By the end of 2009, it had achieved significant results. As many as 2,621 cases concerning Internet piracy had been handled, among which 91 serious cases were sent to judicial authorities and 1,198 illegal websites involved in copyright infringements were forced to shut down, according to the National Copyright Administration.
The government also intensified supervision over major Internet enterprises, a precautionary move to stop piracy spreading. In 2009, the number of websites being supervised by local copyright authorities reached 3,029. They include Taobao.com, Baidu, Sohu and Youku.