China Shutters 205 Web sites Due to Piracy

With pressure increasing on the country to remedy its rampant piracy problems, China said Thursday it had shuttered 205 Web sites in an effort to begin to take control of the problem.

Between the months of September and January, China had opened 436 investigations, with at least 130 of them requested by trade associations outside the country. 361 of them had been ordered to stop, it said.

71 servers have been confiscated in the latest actions, with six ending up as court cases. At least one has already resulted in a conviction, and fines of 705,000 yuan ($91,000 USD) had already been doled out.

The problem of piracy in China is one of the worst in the world. Many blame the strict cultural controls placed on the country's citizens by the government. Western content is sometimes not available, leading to widespread -- and open -- piracy on China's streets.

For example, movie discs can be purchased for about 10 yuan ($1.29 USD). Some movie studios, such as Fox and Warner Bros., are attempting to combat it by selling legitimate discs for about twice that price, however piracy still remains an issue.

About 843,000 Web sites exist in China, although officials cannot estimate how many deal with pirated material. 137 million Chinese are on the Internet, making it the world's second largest Internet audience.