China gave its harshest sentence yet to domestic copyright violators when the mastermind behind an 11-man Chinese gang counterfeiting Microsoft software got a punishment of six-and-a-half years imprisonment and a fine of 1.5 million yuan ($220,000).

A local court in Guangdong's Shenzhen, one of the nation's top IT industrial hubs, sentenced the 10 other members of the group on Wednesday to imprisonments between one-and-a-half years and five years.

Those 10 men also received a collective fine of more than 1.5 million yuan.

The head of the gang, Wang Mouhua (alias), made 1.5 million software discs and published 60,000 bogus discs on the global market. The group made an estimated $2 billion.

Their counterfeit software was discovered in 36 countries, such as Canada and Brazil, priced between $12 and $65, only about one-tenth of the genuine price. It was also found in 11 different languages.

Their production techniques were so advanced that the bogus software not only contained legitimate computer code written by Microsoft for programs such as Windows XP, Vista and Microsoft Office, but also had touches of the criminals' own coding as well.

That was apparently added to mimic security programs and fool users into believing the product was authentic.

Prosecutors said the group put up online ads and bargained with global buyers through emails.

In July 2007, 25 members of the syndicate were arrested by Chinese authorities after a joint investigation by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and China's Public Security Bureau.

The harsh punishment demonstrates China's toughening measures on copyright violators and helps China improve its image as a country that is relatively lenient on such matters, said the US-based software giant.

Much of the bogus software was detected by the controversial Windows Genuine Advantage program, which turns a user's screen black if installed software fails a validation test, Microsoft said.

Promotion of genuine software and a crackdown on piracy has contributed to the drop of China's rate of piracy among individual users from 78 percent in 2006 to 69 percent in 2007.

(China Daily January 2, 2009)