14 DAY TRIAL // We've talked a lot about RIAA and their majestic (NOT) crusade against digital music piracy and it's now time to let them be (NOT) and cross the Pacific to China, just to take a look at what real music (and video) piracy actually means.
Xinhua News informs readers that "according to the official statistics, 19.46 million illegal publications were seized each month on average from July through September, more than double the monthly average for the January-June period last year," as reported by editor Yangtze Yan.
Again, 19 and a half million discs being captured each month! No body knows the true percentage this number means related to the (yet unknown) total number of pirated "publications". It looks like the Chinese pirates are far more productive (and less careful, since they get caught double times more) during the colder parts of the year.
Now, Chinese authorities have decided that they should truly raise productivity of any kind in a massive legal action to bring more pirates to their beloved and seemingly - appropriate, colder environment, namely jail.
While the former anti-piracy law was in effect, criminal prosecution against pirates was eligible for quantities of 1,000 CDs/DVDs or more. Under this threshold, no penal consequences could be constructed by state authorities as the law itself specified that fines double the estimated pirates' gain were due.
Now, things have changed a lot in worse (for pirates, that is): the "allowed" number of illegal copies of music and video CDs and DVDs below which fines (and not criminal penalties such as prison) has been dropped to half, namely 500.
To be clearer, if you're a Chinese pirate and the police storms your home and finds 300 illegally-copied DVDs, you won't go to jail: you get fined. But this time, it's not going to be the old fines that applied hitherto: the new fines go 15 times more than the estimated gain of the caught pirate and have virtually no upper limit.
Given the same case, if you're the Chinese pirate stormed by the police and who is in possession of more than 500 illegal "publications", then you've had it: you're going to jail and can spend your next three years behind bars.
The Chinese anti-piracy "spring campaign" has already led to stupendous results. Chinese authorities have disclosed information about a police raid in southern Guangzhou on March 17th which ended in seizing a roughly 1.8 million discs. I repeat, 1.8 million discs captured on March 17th!
And if you think that some pirate-army was apprehended, well, then you're all wrong: 13 people, operating 30 machines.
