The Shanghai Culture Inspection Team will crack down on thousands of pirated DVDs featuring the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics after illegal producers had exploited the popularity of the Games.
As a souvenir to enjoy the spectacle again at any time, 55-yuan (US$8) official DVDs have received strong market response since they went on the local market on August 12, four days after the opening ceremony.
Priced at about 5 yuan, the pirated CCTV version of the DVDs was available at roadside stalls within three days of the official release. Now more versions shot by different countries have been put on shelves after the CCTV version brought illegal producers fat profits.
"The 10-yuan NBC version DVDs sold out rapidly," said a vendor on Jiaozhou Road of Jing'an District.
Apart from Chinese people who are curious about other versions, many expatriates also come to pick up a copy, according to the vendor.
"We have tightened the control on the pirated DVD sets during the Olympics by intensifying our inspections," said Yan Shuben, office director of the Shanghai Culture Inspection Team.
The team makes inspections every day including weekends. About 104 pirated DVDs of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony have been seized. They were found at a warehouse at Guangcai Wholesale Market.
Pirate DVD sellers can be fined 10,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan if sales are below 10,000 yuan or a fine up to 10 times the actual sales volume.
"We usually put our emphasis on finding the source of the pirated DVDs instead of targeting retail stores, since we don't have much power," Yan said.
The Shanghai Culture Inspection Team is responsible for investigating pirated culture products including DVDs, books, paintings, musical performances and other items.
It has more than 60,000 venues to administrate but has just 74 people on its main team and 270 people on 19 district teams. It can only regulate DVD stores with licenses. Stores with no licenses and street stalls are not within the scope of their investigations.
(Shanghai Daily August 25, 2008)