Beijing: Chinese authorities have destroyed up to 47.18 million pornographic and illegal publications, as part of an intensified drive to strengthen Intellectual Property Rights protection.

The campaign by the national anti-pornography and anti-piracy office was carried out across 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities yesterday, with 17 provinces destroying a million pieces each.

Guangdong alone destroyed 12 million illegal publications, a quarter of the total number, official Xinhua news agency reported.

China in recent years has launched a series of campaigns against crimes related to the infringement of copyrights, trademarks and patent rights.

In its latest move, an executive meeting of the country's State Council presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao approved a new set of guidelines on the national strategy of IPR.

The meeting agreed to step up IPR protection, safeguard market order and the legal rights of the public, strengthen international cooperation and adherence to international practice, besides making concerted efforts to raise awareness of intellectual property issues among the public.

Official data showed that in the past 20 years, China shut down 238 pirate disc production lines, solved more than 400,000 cases of IPR infringement and confiscated more than 1.3 billion illegal publications.

Also, last year, 2967 people were arrested for suspected IPR violations. The Public Security departments probed 2,283 cases of IPR infringement and made arrests in 2,008 cases involving about $213 million.

"China has attached great importance to IPR protection to help build an innovative country", Liu Binjie, Director of the National Copyright Administration was quoted as saying by Xinhua.
Source : PTI