Authorities have reported early success in the 100-day piracy campaign started this month, with Beijing police alone confiscating 7,000 pirated discs.

Ten disc shops in the capital city were closed as they were caught selling over 100 film, music and software discs that violated copyright.

This is the first time that the Beijing municipal government has revoked sales permit of shops selling pirated products, the Beijing Daily reported.

Owners of the stores were barred from participating in the promotion, production, import, wholesale and retail of discs in the coming 10 years, the paper reported.

Meanwhile, shops that sold less than 100 pirated discs had the discs and illegal incomes confiscated.

They were also fined up to 50,000 yuan (US$6,200) according to the law.

Over 140 audio-visual publishing houses in Beijing vowed that they would never publish any products that violated copyright, the paper reported.

More than 10 major computer markets in Zhongguancun, China's "silicon valley," promised that they would strengthen supervision over legitimacy of the software in the computers they sold.

In Taiyuan in North China's Shanxi Province, 40,000 pirated discs were caught in a raid on a night market on Tuesday.

The Chinese Government has offered a reward of 300,000 yuan (US$37,000) to those who successfully report illegal production lines.

In the past, pirated products mainly consisted of computer software, movies, soap operas and bestsellers.

But now, documentaries, teaching materials, dictionaries and even Party education books have been pirated as well.

China International Television Corporation was one of the victims.

"I was really upset when hearing that all of the documentaries we produced were pirated," said Ma Runsheng, manager of the corporation.

(China Daily July 29, 2006)