Piracy gang 

Shanghai Shanda Network Technical Development Co Ltd filed a complaint with the National Copyright Administration over the "Long Teng Chuan Shi" website  (www.66woool.com), which it claimed had set up private servers to run "World of Legend", an online game. It said this infringed on Shanda's legitimate rights and interests. The website servers were traced to a location in Jingzhou, Central China's Hubei Province. The National Copyright Administration legally handed the case over to the Hubei Provincial Copyright Administration for investigation.

The Jingzhou Municipal Copyright Administration established a special action team to investigate the case. Officials found that the website had been built and operated by an Internet piracy gang. The gang had rented the site and network resources from Lante E-commerce Co Ltd in Jingzhou to set up private servers for online games. It also profited by selling virtual game equipment.

The gang listed a number of bank accounts on its website. A special website, www.ggwoool.com, advertised their private servers through Internet search engines. The website also provided links to other private server websites and profited by advertising other private servers. They successively applied for more than 10 domain names and nearly 50 IP addresses. The preliminary investigation found that the gang was operating 80 servers and had a business volume of nearly 1 million yuan (US$125,000).

Due to the scale of the gang and the amount of money involved, the Jingzhou Municipal Copyright Administration legally transferred the case on December 1 to prosecute for criminal liability.

Movie copyrights

Beijing Jidongxing Film & Teleplay Co Ltd filed a complaint with the National Copyright Administration over Huaxia Video (www.52vcd.com), which it claimed had illegally distributed movies such as "A Chinese Odyssey" and infringed upon its copyrights. The website server was traced through its IP address to Changsha, in Central China's Hunan Province. The National Copyright Administration legally handed the case over to the Hunan Provincial Copyright Administration for investigation.

The investigation found that Huaxia Video was a personal website and was not registered with the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry (MII). The website's owner, Xie Shiming, duplicated videos without permission, and provided them as downloads to members.

Huaxia Video had approximately 600 members, an illegal business volume of 40,000 yuan (US$4,963), and illegal earnings of 20,000 yuan (US$2,481).

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