Speech by Yan Xiaohong, Deputy Commissioner of National Copyright Administration

February 15, 2005

Ladies and gentlemen,

National Copyright Administration of China carried out a special operation to crack down on behaviors involving network infringement and piracy from September to December in 2005. Now the relevant conditions are as follows:

The internet industry grows rapidly in China. According to the latest Statistical Report on Internet Development Situation in China, there are more than 110 million Internet users and 690,000 websites at present, the internet has penetrated in all aspects of the social life, become a new industry with great social influence and bright future and played a more and more important role in the economic development and social life of China.

However, controlling internet is very difficult because internet has the following features: boundless, with huge storing capacity and rapid transmission speed. Activities involving network infringement and piracy are increasingly serious and even shocking by the sight in some fields. For example, a lot of websites provide dissemination or download of films, music or software without authorization; some people pirate source codes of other's network games, circumvent attack technological protection measures, or engage in activities involving infringement and piracy of internet games by means of "pirate-servers," "cheat-programs" or other means, and so on. These activities infringe upon legitimate rights and interests of right-holders in audio-visual products and software industry seriously, have great impact on legitimate audio-visual products and software industry, cause network dissemination disorder, become the choke point which severely restricts the sound development of Chinese internet industry, and domestic and overseas right-holders and relevant right-holder organizations show great concerns about them.

In order to regulate the order of network dissemination and protect legitimate rights and interests of right-holders, the National Copyright Administration of China carried out a special operation, which lasted four months, to crack down on behaviors involving network infringement and piracy. The goal of the special operation is to crack down on misfeasance involving communicating others' works and audio-visual products to the public via internet without permission of right-holders, and to investigate and impose penalties on a number of big cases and important cases involving providing download of films, music and software via internet for making profits.

By October 31, 2005, National Copyright Administration of China has received 1,042 pieces of complaint and reportment information concerning the infringement and piracy of literary, music, films, software, games and other works. After further digging and sorting out theses pieces of information and other clues of the cases, the National Copyright Administration of China made a primary investigation on the information of reporters, the name of websites suspected of being involved in infringement activities, the IP address, the number and address of servers, the name, contact methods and mail address of persons who are in charge of the websites, the means of charging, and the bank account and other information, collected a bunch of prima facie evidences, and determined 28 important cases urged directly by the National Copyright Administration of China to be handled and 120 ordinary cases investigated and dealt with by local copyright offices, in accordance with the details of cases and the number of staff in copyright offices.

On the basis of full preparation, the National Copyright Administration of China held a law enforcement work meeting about cracking down on internet infringement and piracy activities, deployed tasks of investigation and punishment in detail, determined relevant bodies assuming the tasks of investigation and punishment, and defined the deadline. Local copyright offices that undertook the cases attached great importance to the special operation, transferred law enforcement officials rapidly to form a special group, and brought technical experts and legal experts into full play. They carried the work of investigation and punishment rapidly and decisively, and continued working so that they achieved breakthrough in most cases in a short period. During the period of investigation, the local copyright offices cooperated with the police and telecommunication authorities, formed a work mechanism of cooperation among the local copyright offices, the police and telecommunication authorities when dealing with cases concerning network infringement, and tried their best to link up the administrative punishments and justice.

By December 31, 2005, with the cooperation of local police and telecommunication authorities, local copyright offices have investigated and dealt with 172 cases concerning network infringement(among them there are 28 important cases determined by the National Copyright Administration,120 ordinary cases, and 24 cases entertained independently placed on file by local authorities). On the basis of investigation and evidence collection in respect of 173 suspected websites and 405 servers, the law enforcement officials closed 76 "three-no-websites," confiscated 39 servers specially used for infringement and piracy activities, ordered 137 websites to delete contents involving infringement, imposed penalties on 29 websites conducting infringement activities(the fine summed up to 789,000 yuan), and transferred 18 suspected criminal cases to judiciary organs. Of them,14 cases reported by overseas right-holders and right-holders' organizations was investigated and dealt with, which accounted for 50 percent of the 28 important cases.

In all, this special operation has met its purpose, and has been favorably commented by the public and overseas right-holders' organizations. IFPI and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPA) separately sent its letter to National Copyright Administration, praising this special operation on cracking down internet infringement and piracy as "hard but effective",and expressed its hope for enhanced cooperation on cracking down internet infringement and piracy.

The Chinese government attaches great importance to the development and controlling of internet, and has taken a series of effective measures and achieved evident effect. For the future, the Chinese government will further strengthen the copyright protection in network environment and will build a sound environment for the healthy development of the internet industry.

Now my colleagues and I would like to answer your questions.