China has launched several campaigns to combat copyright infringement, aiming to boost regular supervision and extend powers to target the violation of products, the country's copyright administration said.

This year the authority has received 282 reports of online piracy from provincial departments, of which 210 were related to administrative punishment and 72 were transferred to judicial organs.

A total of 93 servers and other equipment were confiscated and 183 websites shut down.

"Besides our regular work, we've also developed some special campaigns to deal with infringements in an effective way," Wang Zhicheng, deputy director-general of the administration's copyright department, said at an IPR seminar in Beijing, which ended on Wednesday

Since 2005, the authority has cooperated with legal departments to launch Sword Internet, a campaign targeting online music, videos, literature, games, e-commerce and software. It will also focus on copyright infringement using mobile terminals next year.

In 2008, the administration established an anti-piracy working group for the Beijing Olympics and closed 117 websites, while a similar group functioned during the 2010 Shanghai Expo.

The Double Crackdown on Criminals was another campaign to curb copyright infringement. As of June last year, the campaign cracked 2,697 violations that resulted in administrative punishment and 179 were transferred to judicial organs to be investigated. The administration and police also closed 1,548 places where illegal products were made or sold.

- Cao Yin

(China Daily 12/06/2012 page5)