A total of 34 people were found guilty of piracy offences in the Chinese courts, and have been handed down sentences ranging from temporary detention to six and a half years imprisonment.

Twenty-four people were imprisoned in eight newly concluded cases involving copyright tort, among which seven were related to the production and sale of pirated disks, according to a statement from the National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publication over the weekend.

In one case, Gong Yubin, on charges of copyright infringement and selling pornographic products, was sentenced by a local court to six and a half years in prison, plus a fine of 53,000 yuan ($8,400). Police seized 498,000 pirated disks in his illegal shop.

Chen Chunfa was given six years in prison for copyright infringement offenses and fined 3 million yuan, the heaviest fine issued in the eight cases on trial.

Three cases among the eight were investigated based on information collected in reports from the public.

In 2011, law enforcement authorities throughout China seized a total of 52 million copies of pirated, pornographic and illegal publications.

(Source: People's Daily Online)