Crackdown launched on Chinese cartoon piracy

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, January 02, 2004

Crackdown launched on Chinese cartoon piracy

The State Copyright Bureau (SCB) launched a three-week nationwide crackdown on piracy of the popular Chinese cartoon, Blue Cat, in the first anti-piracy campaign of the New Year.

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The State Copyright Bureau (SCB) launched a three-week nationwide crackdown on piracy of the popular Chinese cartoon, Blue Cat, in the first anti-piracy campaign of the New Year.

An SCB spokesman said Friday copyright authorities nationwide had joined police and industry and commerce administrations to stop pirated products of Blue Cat, including publications, video and audio products, stationery, toys, clothes and food.

Blue Cat, a TV cartoon series, has a huge following among Chinese children and has been developed into a range of 14 related products.

Like other famous brands, Blue Cat has suffered severely from piracy in the market.

Its maker, the Sanchen Cartoon Group, based in central China's Hunan Province, requested the SCB to crack down upon piracy nationwide late last year.

The SCB investigation showed piracy did severely harm the legal rights and interests of the maker of Blue Cat and disturb the market.

The administrations will confiscate pirated products of Blue Cat and punish individuals and institutions who produce, distribute and sell pirated products during the campaign.

The government has worked hard to prevent piracy of cartoon andcomic books, but seldom launches an action for a certain brand.

The Sanchen Cartoon Group has registered Blue Cat and six othercartoon figures in its TV series as trademarks and formed an intellectual property rights protection office to coordinate its subsidiaries and distributors around China in combating piracy.

Since the Law on Copyright was passed in 1990, the SCB has started to process appeals from companies and institutions to crack down piracy of a certain product or in a certain industry after investigation.

The SCB launched nationwide actions in response to six appeals in 2003.

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