After providing access to a huge range of music, movies and TV shows since 2003, VeryCD pulled the plug on many of its links to illicit entertainment downloads.

“7 years of hard work and accumulation, that will now shut off, the end is the end. No one wanted this, but we had expected this moment would suddenly come,” said founder Huang Yimeng on the site’s official blog this weekend.

“Now all we can do is face the reality with courage. We must never give up – 2011 is our new starting point. Work! Hard!”

After avoiding a crackdown against many similar sites in 2008, the pressure on VeryCD in 2011 was clearly too much.

As reported earlier this month, China’s attempts at reducing copyright infringement have increasingly targeted the digital domain and while Youtube-like sites have taken up much of the spotlight, it was only a matter of time before linking sites like VeryCD felt similar heat.

Huang Yimeng confirmed that the mass deletions were prompted by urgent copyright infringement fears and that the site was forced to act sooner than it would have liked.

“Although we have been preparing for this event, the required adjustment was very urgent. This lead us to adjust rather quickly to delete the content of copyright-related disputes,” Huang Yimeng explained.

The urgency spoken of is almost certainly related to the fact that earlier this month the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security released a document which detailed penalties for online copyright infringement.

If someone uploads a movie, TV show, music, software or even image to the Internet without the consent of the copyright holder, penalties apply if certain conditions are met. These include if more than 500 pieces of the work are spread to others, if total online downloads hit 50,000 or if a site where the material is located has a signup membership of more than 1,000. Penalties are harsh – between 3 and 7 years in jail.

VeryCD is also keen to obtain an official license to operate and this move towards authorized content should help with that.

Users of VeryCD are understandably disappointed at the disappearance of so much content. But while one user complains that due to the mass deletions he will no longer be able to “get an understanding of the world” from his small city which has few cinemas, another, three comments down, posts a reply – containing a BitTorrent magnet link to the same content.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In 2008 and 2009 the Chinese authorities did make some moves against several file-sharing sites, although this was mainly due to them being unlicensed or offering ‘horrific’ or pornographic videos.

One file-sharing site, VeryCD, China’s biggest eDonkey links site, escaped closure but did receive stern warnings. However, in terms of linking to mainstream copyright movies, it carried on its business as usual.

Now, rather than receiving unwanted attention from the authorities, the site has become the target of a very rare event in China. Along with several other sites, VeryCD is now being sued for copyright infringement, specifically for providing links to the recently released martial arts movie, Ip Man 2.

During a press conference the China Film Copyright Protection Association (CFCPA) announced that together with Dasheng International Media (DIM), the studio that owns the rights to Ip Man 2, it has filed a lawsuit against VeryCD in the Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People’s Court.

President of DIM, An Xiaofen, said that the movie was made available via VeryCD just a week after its release in late April. By May 5th it had been downloaded 10,000,000 times.

An Xiaofen said that he expected that around one third of those downloads equate to actual lost sales which meant his company had lost around 100 million yuan ($14.76m). The actual court claim against VeryCD is more modest – 11.85 million yuan ($1.73m)

“In the first half of this year 110 Chinese-language films were released in China, but only 13 made money, that means 90% of the films are losing money”, he explained. “In such circumstances, anti-piracy actions are even more important.”

After ignoring to requests to cease their activities, the operators of two further websites, 365pub.com and cnnip.com, are also being sued by CFCPA for allegedly providing movies and download services to Internet cafes. Some Internet cafes themselves will also be sued.

According to CFCPA, movie piracy on the Internet is rampant in China. It claims that in the 18 to 35 year old bracket, 50.5% watch movies illegally online, each averaging 31.1 movies per year.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

According to a report from Xinhuanet, China’s State Administration of Radio Film and Television has taken action against 17 sites it claims violated various regulations, including the publishing of horrific, violent or pornographic content, and operating a video site without proper approval. None of the sites appeared to have been warned or shuttered due to piracy issues.

One of the sites that has been warned, VeryCD, is China’s largest eDonkey indexing site. In operation for around 5 years, it claims to link to more than 30 terabytes of data. VeryCD also operates a service known as MP3! which aims to be the world’s largest index of MP3 files, which would understandably attract some copyright action.

However, a visit to VeryCD appears to show the site pretty much intact and packed with links to the latest movies, music, games and software. So, it appears the site was warned, rather than banned. Details are scarce, what might it have been warned about if it is not related to copyright infringement?

Of course, pornographic content is available on eDonkey, that is one option. Another possibility lies in the list of complaints about the various sites – there is one which reads “spreading video programs that violate national regulations”. VeryCD actually created their own version of eMule, which has been downloaded more than 30 million times. Could that be the cause of the warning?

Whatever the problem, unusually for a file-sharing site, it wasn’t piracy.

Via SHD

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.