American Nationals Given Jail Terms for Selling Pirated DVDs

Two American citizens were sentenced to jail terms and deportation from China Tuesday after being convicted of selling pirated DVDs to overseas buyers for illegal profits by a court in east China's metropolis of Shanghai.

Randolph Hobson Guthrie III and Cody Abram Thrush were sentenced to two and a half years and one year in prison respectively by the Shanghai No.2 Intermediate People's Court, and both would be expelled from China after serving their sentences.

The court found the two Americans guilty of selling some 130, 000 pirated DVD copies to foreign countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, through the Internet between Nov. 3, 2003 and July 1, 2004, reaping illegal profits worth some 970,000 yuan (117,000 US dollars) in total.

The two ran a commercial website at www.threedollardvd.com and sold the pirated DVDs at a price of three dollars per copy, according to the court verdict.

The court also ruled that the two Americans pay a fine of 500, 000 yuan (60,500 US dollars) and 10,000 yuan (1,200 dollars) respectively.

The court also sentenced Wu Dong and Wu Shibiao, two Chinese accomplices in the case who helped the Americans gather and distribute the pirated DVDs, to 15 months in jail and a fine of 10, 000 yuan (1,200 US dollars), and a fine of 30,000 yuan (3,600 US dollars) respectively.

Wu Shibiao received a lighter punishment because he turned himself in during police investigation of the case, court sources said.

He Pingfan, a presiding judge from the court, told Xinhua that Tuesday's verdict was given in strict accordance with Chinese laws on intellectual property rights protection, and clearly embodied China's legal principle of equal punishment for criminal offenses committed in China by either Chinese or foreign citizens.

Xue Zhen, the judge in charge of Tuesday's case, said that people's courts in China would continue to make intensified efforts to punish infringements on intellectual property rights according to relevant laws and regulations.

"It is becoming increasingly important for China to take a more active stand in protecting the intellectual property rights following the country's accession to the World Trade Organization," said Xue.

Piracy has remained a long-time headache for China, which often came under international pressure to crack down more severely on intellectual property rights violations in the country.

The Information Office of the State Council, China's cabinet, announced Tuesday that it would issue on Thursday a white paper titled New Progress in China's Protection of Intellectual Property Rights, to tell the world what China had done in this regard.

It is the second document of its kind to be released since 1994, according to the Information Office.