China video site QVOD execs indicted for pornography

This screen shot of a news video taken on Sept 24, 2014 shows Wang Xin, former CEO of QVOD Technology Co Ltd, during an interview at a detention center in Beijing. [Photo/IC]

BEIJING - Four executives of Chinese online video service QVOD were indicted Friday in Beijing for spreading pornography on the Internet.

An investigation concluded that the four executives with Shenzhen QVOD Technology Co, including its chief executive officer Wang Xin, used the video site to make profits even though they knew that a large amount of pornography was uploaded, downloaded and watched, the Haidian district people's procuratorate said in a statement.

The company, founded in 2007, offered pirated and pornographic videos with peer-to-peer video streaming technology and its user base quickly grew to 300 million. In April last year, the company shut its QVOD (quasi video on demand) servers after the National Copyright Administration said it, along with Baidu's video service, violated copyrights. Its service has not been resumed.

In June, the company was fined 260 million yuan ($41.6 million) for copyright infringement.