One of China’s leading file-sharing sites permanently disabled access to many music and movie downloads this weekend. Citing copyright concerns and tightening legislation, the boss of VeryCD said that after 7 years hard work since the creation of his company, times are changing. In the face of a massively disappointed userbase, VeryCD will now concentrate on directing users to licensed content.
In a very rare event, a Chinese anti-piracy group says it will sue several websites and companies for their involvement in film piracy in the country. As it teams up with the studio behind the recent martial arts hit Ip Man 2, not only will web portals and Internet cafes be sued, but one of China’s biggest file-sharing link sites, VeryCD.
The Chinese government has stepped in and banned 10 video sites, while giving warnings to 17 others. The sites were accused of ‘regulations violations’ ranging from running a service without authorization, through to displaying violent or horrific content. None of the charges relate to piracy, even though one of the sites is China’s biggest eDonkey indexing site.
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