China widens net for IPR pirates
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-04-05 22:41
China's top court stepped up the fight against intellectual piracy by
lowering the threshold for criminal manufacture or sale of counterfeit
intellectual property products.
A new judicial interpretation issued by the Supreme
People's Court on Thursday states that anyone who manufactures 500 or more
counterfeit copies (discs) of computer software, music, movies, TV series and
other audio-video products faces a prison term of up to three years.
The new rules also widen the definition of a "serious IPR
offender" - anyone who produces more than 2,500 counterfeit copies can be
thrown into jail for up to seven years.
The rules are effective
immediately, the top court said. They replace the 2004 rules whose net only
extended to infringers who produced 1,000 pirated discs and which defined
"serious offenders" as those who produced over 5,000 copies.
Sources
with the Supreme People's Court said they made the change in order to deal with
"new problems" in the crackdown on piracy.
"The courts will extend the
protection of intellectual property rights and play to the full their role in
punishing infringers and preventing crimes," a court spokesman said.
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