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by Mike Zazaian September 18, 2006 - 11:38am, 4 Comments

The Chinese government is waging a 100-day battle against software and media piracy, the largest such effort ever conducted.

After launching the effort on July 15, Chinese police and copyright officials have raided 537,000 illegal publication markets and distributors in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Liaoning Province. Of these, government officials have closed down 8,907 shops and street vendors, 481 publishing companies and 942 illegal websites.

Two of the largest pirated media operations in Liaoning Province, one located near Shenyang’s Sanhao Street, the other in the Science and Technology Park of Liaoning University, were among those targeted.

These two centres provided over 90 per cent of all pirated compact disks to the city residents, said Wang Hongyu, head of Shenyang Anti-Pirated Enforcement Team. But now you can hardly find any pirated products there.

The crack down was initiated by more than 10 ministries and national departments, including the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Security, the State Administration of Press and Publication, and the National Copyright Administration. Each of the 13 million illegal CDs and DVDs that were seized up to this point in the raids were destroyed on September 16th.

[via The China Daily]