Slashdot Mirror
China Seizes 13 Million Pirated Discs
TechFreep writes "The Chinese government is waging a 100-day battle against software and media piracy, the largest such effort ever conducted. After launching the effort on July 15, Chinese police and copyright officials have raided 537,000 illegal publication markets and distributors in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Liaoning Province. Of these, government officials have closed down 8,907 shops and street vendors, 481 publishing companies and 942 illegal websites." This article in China Daily quotes vendors of legal media products gushing over their increased sales.
full text:
The Chinese government is waging a 100-day battle against software and media piracy, the largest such effort ever conducted.
After launching the effort on July 15, Chinese police and copyright officials have raided 537,000 illegal publication markets and distributors in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Liaoning Province. Of these, government officials have closed down 8,907 shops and street vendors, 481 publishing companies and 942 illegal websites.
Two of the largest pirated media operations in Liaoning Province, one located near Shenyang's Sanhao Street, the other in the Science and Technology Park of Liaoning University, were among those targeted.
These two centres provided over 90 per cent of all pirated compact disks to the city residents, said Wang Hongyu, head of Shenyang Anti-Pirated Enforcement Team. But now you can hardly find any pirated products there.
The crack down was initiated by more than 10 ministries and national departments, including the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Security, the State Administration of Press and Publication, and the National Copyright Administration. Each of the 13 million illegal CDs and DVDs that were seized up to this point in the raids were destroyed on September 16th.
I hate it when the media misuse the word "pirate". You'd think Slashdot could at least get it right.
Illegal copies sold at retail are counterfit copies, not "pirated copies".
Piracy is when you copy content yourself for free. With piracy, no one profits off someone else's hard work.
Counterfitting is when someone runs illegal copies and then sells the copies for their own profit.
It's a subtle difference, but an important one.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
cheap-oem-software.org is down. so are a few others.
Counterfitting is passing it off as genuine. If the customers knows it is copied and still buys it--that's just for-profit piracy.
except they were like $10-$15 at Harbor Freight.
You gotta watch some of that Harbor Freight stuff. I bought a mini-lathe there a couple of years ago. Let's just say plastic threads don't work very well.
Cheap is one thing, but cheap and useless is just a waste of money. I'd rather spend $300, and have it actually work, than spend $30, and it's useless.
Once in a while the police will raid the place to show that they're cracking down on the illegal software business. They will keep an eye on the place for a couple of weeks and after that just give up. After that, the vendors will just take up their usual spots again and it will be business as usual. It seems like this cycle just goes on every year with no real progress being made, and I have a feeling that it's the same in China.
All those stores would be open again in a month, selling all their stuff like nothing has happened. It's just a publicity stunt and nothing else.