Large scale crackdown

China prosecuted 1,076 IPR infringement cases n the first half of this year, says China's General Administration of Customs (GAC).

Altogether, 39 million fake products were seized, with a total value of more than 68 million yuan (US$8.5 million), according to statistics from the GAC.

On May 24, Guangzhou customs seized 108,000 bottles of counterfeit medicine called Wong To Yick from Hong Kong, valuing 1.89 million yuan (US$236,000).

It was the biggest reported case involving imported fake goods in recent years.

According to GAC, Xiamen customs in May seized 672 pieces of children's clothing suspected of illegally carrying the 2008 Olympic trademark mascot.

The same violation was discovered by Tianjin customs concerning 4,150 school bags exported to Cameroon.

More sophisticated electronic detection devices were being used to uncover IPR infringement, said the GAC.

Online tunes

Nine Chinese websites are being fined and blocked from running illegal online music services, according to China's Ministry of Culture.

The ministry has completed a check of website operators in the past three months, and has singled out nine websites that were illegally selling music for which they didn't have the distribution rights or had not applied for authorization to sell the music and conduct online commerce.

The ministry says that www.9sky.com and www.music.sogua.com were asked to pay fines and stop illegal services, as they didn't have approval to conduct online commercial activities.

Two other websites, www.a8.com and www.music.tyfo.com, will be fined for offering foreign music not officially approved by the ministry.

They should stop the service and submit their play list to the ministry for approval, said the Ministry of Culture

The ministry didn't elaborate on the other suspended websites, saying their investigation is continuing.

Movie battle

Chinese moviemakers are up in arms about TV stations showing movies without their permission as every year they run into over 60 million yuan (US$7.5 million) of economic losses.

According to a recent survey by the China Movie Copyright Protection Association (CMCPA), scores of provincial, city and county TV stations around the country air pirated versions of movies or buy low-cost copies from suppliers without authorization from moviemakers.

In July, China Education TV Station (ETV) was sentenced to pay 50,000 yuan (US$6,250) in fines to CCTV Movie Channel for illegally showing its movie: Charging out of the Amazon.

The association estimates that 1,200-1,500 movies made by their members are illegally broadcast by TV stations each year.

TV program producers are blamed for lacking respect for intellectual property rights and strict censorship of movie broadcast licenses.

(China Daily 08/21/2006 page9)