The defendant in the country's first online game copyright infringement case yesterday admitted having made thousands of yuan as profit by copying a popular online game, Mir 3, and posting it on the Internet.

But, Luo Zhiguo told the Shanghai Putuo District People's Court, that he didn't make a profit of 500,000 yuan, as charged. "We (all the three accused) earned about 80,000 yuan and spent the rest of the money on the game's maintenance."

"I paid the Guangdong game operator 250,000 yuan as compensation after I surrendered to police."

Luo Zhiguo and his two friends, You Tangcun, and Ye Weilong operated the game illegally from August 2004 to May 2005. You has already been sentenced, and Ye is at large.

Wang Juan, a prosecutor with Shanghai Putuo District Prosecutor's Office, told the court that the three had collected money from more than 2,000 member players by offering the game at a much lower price. They had also carried online advertisements, and made more than 500,000 yuan.

In February 2005, Guangzhou Optisp Company, the only authorized operator of the game, reported to police that it had been suffering a loss of 10 million yuan a month because of illegal operations.

Investigators found that an illegal operator with servers in Putuo District of Shanghai was serving most of the non-registered players.

The servers had been rented in the name of You, who was arrested on May 25. Ye turned himself in two days later, but fled while on bail.

The court ordered You to be kept under house arrest for three years. Luo surrendered in June.

Luo told the court yesterday that the three used to play Mir 3 regularly but were not satisfied with the service. "We began running the racket just for fun," Luo said.

"But after many other players started playing it on our server, we thought we could make some money from it."

Luo bought seven sets of the game on the Net from a person called Lao A for about 3,000 yuan each. You then rented servers, and Ye communicated with players.

Police are still looking for Lao.

Playing Mir 3 on the authorized server could cost several hundred yuan a month, depending on the length of playing time. But the three friends offered gamers permanent access for just 300 yuan.

Luo said he was not aware that they were committing a crime because a lot of other people were also doing the same. And some are still at it.

An online game was operated on pirated software for the first time in the country in 2001, after which the violations became rampant.

The court has not given its verdict in Luo's case.

(China Daily January 11, 2007)