China will intensify crackdown on roadside peddlers selling pirated or illegal publications, including DVDs, and plans to bring about fundamental changes to the situation this year.

"There must be fundamental changes to the phenomenon of pirated and illegal publications being sold on roadsides of large and medium-sized cities this year," said a circular jointly issued by six government departments, including the public security and culture ministries, on Friday.

According to the notice, law enforcement forces will be strengthened in business hours of pirated or illegal publications sellers, generally on the evenings of weekends and holidays.

Law enforcement forces are ordered to increase the frequency of patrols in these hours.

Chinese law enforcement departments have confiscated 800,000 pornographic discs and investigated more than 500 cases involving the production, storage, sale and distribution of porn discs in the first four months this year, according to the National Office for Cleaning Up Pornography and Fighting Illegal Publications which is heading the campaign.

China confiscated around 110 million illegal CDs and DVDs in 2006, according to the Ministry of Culture.

From 1994 to 2005, China confiscated 1.5 billion illegal publications, of which more than one billion were pirated discs and 88.23 million were pornographic DVDs. More than 40,000 illegal printing houses and 221 production lines have been closed down.

Source: Xinhua