Chinese police confiscated seven illegal production lines of
DVDs recently in three separate cases in south China, the national
office for crackdown on pornographic and illegal publications said
on Thursday.
A total of 6,315 parent discs were also confiscated in these
cases occurring in south China's Guangdong and Hainan provinces,
sources with the office said.
On Jan. 13, the Hainan provincial office for crackdown on
pornographic and illegal publications conducted a surprise check on
Hanan Wenguang Electronic Disc Co., Ltd. They discovered two
illegal disc production lines and confiscated 5,360 pirated discs
on the spot.
Four days after, police discovered two illegal production lines
that were making pirated DVDs in Guangming Paper Mill in Bao'an
District of Shenzen Municipality in Guangdong.
Police arrested 11 suspects on the spot and confiscated 29,000
pirated discs and 2,948 parent discs.
Since China confiscated the first illegal production line of
discs in 1996, a total of 231 illegal production lines of discs,
which can produce 220 million discs annually, have been seized,
said Xu Hu, vice director of the public order management bureau
under the Ministry of Public Security last July.
Xu said, "Most of the illegal production lines are smuggled from
overseas and some were using cutting-edge technologies."
Five of the seven illegal production lines were imported from
Japan and were seized soon after being put into operation, sources
with the office said.
Illegal operations are the source of pirated discs and seizing
these lines can effectively wipe out pirated discs in China,
sources with the office said.
The office urged local public security bureaus to intensify
their investigations and punish violators.
Legal companies that engaged in unlicensed production would risk
having their licenses revoked, sources with the office said.
(Xinhua News Agency February 22, 2008)