The Taipei Times reports that two Americans have been arrested in China. The
arrests were the results of an extensive investigation that was done by both
Chinese and US authorities. The United States is fighting against piracy to
defend the intellectual property from its entertaiment industry (e.g Hollywood).
Many Asian countries suffer from high piracy rates and the estimated piracy rate
of China is over 90%. With the arrest of the two the police also seized more
then 210.000 pirated DVDs and about $ 100k in cash.
 The arrests grew out of an effort called Operation
Spring that began with federal authorities in Gulfport, Mississippi, and
grew to include officials in Houston, Washington, Beijing and Shanghai. In
addition to the seizures, US officials said Chinese authorities destroyed
three warehouses that were used to store counterfeit DVDs for distribution
around the world. The state-run Xinhua news agency said the director of
the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, told reporters in Shanghai that the
Americans had sold 100,000 of the DVDs worldwide.
US officials
said they knew little about the Americans arrested in the case. But
Guthrie, the son of a retired doctor, described himself in great length in
a profile on a Web site for men seeking brides from Russia. As a resident
of Shanghai who speaks English and Chinese, he said he owned a Web site
that sold DVDs online. "My gross sales are currently about US$ 25,000 per
month, and I have 10 full-time employees," he
wrote.
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Besides the two Americans also four other people
were arrested. All will stand trial in China, the article does not mention the
punishments they could face. Read the entire article on the Taipei Times Website. Discuss this in our Music
Downloads, P2P & Legal Issues Forum.
Source: TaipeiTimes
