At its national conference which concluded Thursday in Beijing, the administration announced a redoubling of efforts to combat the pirated compact disc trade in major cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing, Dalian, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Qingdao, Xiamen, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Kunming and Xi'an.

The provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, Zhejiang, Henan, Hunan, Guangdong, Sichuan and Shaanxi are required to remedy their printing industries to prevent faked products.

From October to the first half of next year, the administration will work together with the Ministry of Public Security and other relevant departments, to inspect printing industries across the country.

In March next year, the administration will launch a national campaign to fight the production and selling of pirated compact disks.

The campaign will focus on docks, railway stations, stands around schools, underpasses, residential quarters, recreation centers and areas near shopping centers, where the selling of pirated compact discs is rampant.

The administration's head, Shi Zongyuan, said China is preparing to sign two new treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) - the WIPO Copyright Treaty and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.

The two treaties took effect in March and May of 2002 to meet the need of new technologies, especially network technology development.

Shi said China has started to draft a regulation on protecting dissemination rights for information networks. The work has been listed in next year's legislation plans of the State Council.

Shi said his administration is investigating a case involving the Microsoft (China) Company, which has aroused worldwide interest.

On June 29 this year, Microsoft (China) Co Ltd appealed to the National Copyrights Administration, saying that three companies in Beijing and Tianjin had illegally copied Microsoft software.

The three companies had made 74,000 illegal copies of the software. Microsoft (China) wished that the administration would ask the three companies to stop copying activities, make apologies and receive administrative punishment.

Shi said his administration has received the case.

"If the three companies' copyright violations are true, we will seriously punish them and other relevant factories that make copied software products," Shi said.

(China Daily September 24, 2004)