China made public eight major piracy and infringement cases cracked in 2008, a move to show "the government's resolution to protect intellectual property rights (IPR)", the anti-piracy authority said Thursday.

The cases, mostly about illegal publication of audiovisual products, books, and website IPR infringement, all involved large groups of people and considerable amounts of money, according to the National Office of Anti-Pornography and Anti-Illegal Publications.

One case, for example, concerned more than 30 people from Tianjin, a municipality near the capital Beijing, wholesaling pirated audiovisual products across the country from 2005 to 2008, the People's Daily reported.

Police in Tianjin and the southern city of Guangzhou joined hands and arrested the 24 major suspects. Police confiscated more than 200,000 pirated videos plus some 1,000 pornographic ones, the report said.

Another case involved an underground video production line in the southern city of Shenzhen. Its behind-the-scene "boss" was arrested in November, the first "boss" to be successfully tracked by police in the many illegal production line cases.

Shenzhen police confiscated the two production lines, raw materials and about 29,000 DVDs. Another seven suspects were also arrested.

An official with the Office said the successful cracking of these cases must have struck the lawbreakers and helped advance the country's fight against piracy.

In the past two years, the Office confiscated more than 100 million illegal books, magazines and videos. It also deleted half a million pieces of questionable information on websites.

(China Daily December 26, 2008)