Hong Kong government reiterated its firm commitment to combating Internet piracy, appealing to the community to stay away from illegal uploading and downloading activities, a government official said Monday.

Speaking at a ceremony marking the launch of a new series of publicity and educational programs to promote respect for intellectual property rights (IPRs), Joseph W P Wong, the Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology, reminded the community, in particular young people, to respect IPRs of creative industries to enable Hong Kong to remain a world city where creativity could flourish.

As part of the government's continuous efforts to combat Internet piracy, the Commerce, Industry and Technology Bureau, Intellectual Property Department (IPD) and Customs and Excise Department, in collaboration with the creative industries and a number of youth organizations, launched Monday a series of educational and publicity programs to promote respect for IPRs in the digital environment.

These programs include the Youth Ambassador Against Internet Piracy Scheme which will be jointly rolled out by Customs and Excise and IPD in July. Under the Scheme, more than 200,000 youngsters from 11 local youth uniformed organizations will participate as Youth Ambassadors.

Customs and Excise will set up a purpose-built website for them to report suspected copyright infringement activities and forward the information to the appropriate participating IPR body for follow-up action.

To urge people to stay away from Internet piracy, IPD has produced two new TV and radio Announcements of Public Interest (APIs), featuring famous artists Jacky Cheung and Simon Yam. The APIs, which were released Monday, aim to remind people that unlawful activities on the Internet could be tracked down and parents should not give up responsibility for their children when the latter were using the Internet.

To further public education efforts in schools, the Education and Manpower Bureau, in consultation with IPD, will prepare a teaching kit aimed at encouraging students to adopt a proper attitude and manner of handling copyright works on the Internet. The teaching kit will consist of a teacher's manual, videos and presentation materials.

In addition, the government will also join with local radio stations to produce a series of publicity programs targeted at young people in the coming few months.

(Xinhua News Agency May 30, 2006)