BEIJING -- Nine Chinese websites are being fined and blocked from running
illegal online music services, according to China's Ministry of Culture
recently.
The ministry has completed a check of website operators in the past three
months, and has singled out nine websites that were illegally selling music for
which they didn't have the distribution rights or had not applied for
authorization to sell the music and conduct online commerce.
The ministry said that www.9sky.com and www.music.sogua.com were asked to pay
fines and stop their illegal services, as they didn't have approval to conduct
online commercial activities.
Two other websites, www.a8.com and www.music.tyfo.com, will be fined for
offering foreign music not officially approved by the ministry.
"They should stop the service and submit their play list to the ministry for
approval." it said.
The ministry didn't elaborate on the other suspended websites, saying their
investigation is continuing.
Local cultural departments also banned games containing obscenity, gambling
and excessive violence, including "BloodRayne 2" and "Obsure".
Companies publishing "FreeStyle Street Basketball" and "Legends of Empire"
were fined for selling these online games without official approval.
Cultural authorities in Sichuan, Hubei, Henan, Jiangsu provinces and
Chongqing municipality closed down 29 private servers for illegally providing
online games.
"It is necessary to crack down on illegal Internet business to ensure better
protection of intellectual property rights," an official with the ministry told
Xinhua.
Statistics show that China has 111 million Internet users, second only to the
United States.
Last year, China's online music sales totaled 3.6 billion yuan (US$450
million) and sales of online games amounted to 2 billion yuan (US$250
million).
