Two Americans, Randolph Hobson Guthrie III and Cody Abram Thrush, received prison sentences from a Shanghai court yesterday along with two Chinese accomplices for selling pirated DVDs online.

"Nearly 120,000 pirated DVDs were found at Guthrie's home and in a temporary warehouse rented by Wu Shibiao," said Qin Jiongtian, prosecutor from Shanghai No.2 Intermediate Procuratorate.

Guthrie, the suspected ringleader, was sentenced to 30 months in jail and fined 500,000 yuan (US$60,459).

Shibiao, Wu Dong and Thrush were given jail terms of up to 15 months and fines of 10,000-30,000 yuan (US$1,209-3,628).

Guthrie and Thrush will be expelled from the country after serving their prison terms, the judge pronounced.

Police said the four had sold pirated DVDs for US$3 through eBay and another website called "Three Dollar DVD" from November 3, 2003 to July 1 last year.

According to receipts from courier companies and data seized from Guthrie's computer, they claimed that over 180,000 pirated DVDs worth more than 7 million yuan (US$840,000) had been sold by the company.

The judge found evidence of them selling about 133,000 pirated DVDs worth over 3.3 million yuan (US$393,000) to more than 20 countries including the US, Australia, the UK and Canada and earning nearly 1 million yuan (US$120,900).

The case was last year categorized as one of the country's top 10 IPR (intellectual property rights) cases by the State Intellectual Property Office.

Investigators swung into action when the Bureau of Investigation of Economic Crimes under the Ministry of Public Security received a report from the US Embassy in China last April and immediately started to coordinate with their US counterparts.

Guthrie, Wu Dong and Thrush were arrested about two months later and Wu Shibiao turned himself in shortly afterwards.

"Guthrie denied in court that he had ever sold any DVDs on eBay and claimed that he dealt only in shoes and purses; but the evidence against him was overwhelming," said Qin.

The four convicts did not say in the courtroom whether they would appeal the sentences.

The same day, the start of a national weeklong public awareness campaign, the chief judge of the Supreme People's Court's Intellectual Property Rights Tribunal said work against IPR violations had intensified because domestic and overseas pirates were colluding.

Speaking in Beijing, Jiang Zhipei said authorities had been aware of transnational piracy but were often unable to seize suspects. He was delighted that a major case had been solved due to joint China-US efforts.

Jiang said courts would continue to enforce IPR, adding "the number of cases is likely to rise in the second half of this year due to the new judicial interpretation late last year that aims to make it easier to prosecute IPR crimes."

Last year, courts heard more than 12,000 IPR cases, up roughly a third on the previous year. Of them, 151 cases involved foreign individuals, businesses or other organizations.

(China Daily April 20, 2005)