Pirated products destroyed
- Source: Global Times
- [08:39 April 25 2011]
- Comments
Men shred CDs and DVDs during a ceremony to destroy illegal and pirated products in Wangsiying, Chaoyang district, on Friday. Photo: Wang Zi/GT
By Hao Ying
Beijing officials donned white gloves to shred a portion of 26.48 million pirated CDs, DVDs and publications seized nationwide, at a ceremony duplicated in 30 other regions across China on Friday.
Pretty young women in identical blue blazers and skirts pulled DVDs from shopping bags emblazoned "Beijing Cultural Law Enforcement Agency" and handed them to the middle-aged male officials, who smiled for the cameras as they threw the discs into six noisy chippers.
After a minute, six handsome police officers took over, continuing to shred the DVDs until the machines started jamming. No system was in place to remove the colorful shards that spewed chaotically onto the ground.
The warehouse from which police dragged new bins of DVDs was full of sand, not pirated goods, while the eight trucks that had hauled illegal books and comics to the ceremony only had books stacked high at their back edges, making it obvious that this was a symbolic event only.
DVD piracy continues unabated in Beijing. Sunday, three shops around the corner from a police station in Sanlitun sold 8-yuan ($1.23) copies of the newly released Rio with a warning that the quality of the No.1 box office draw in the United States was not very good. Also for sale were copies of the newly released Scream 4 and the new version of the Chinese movie classic A Chinese Ghost Story, which hit theaters last week.
At Friday's disc destruction ceremony, young women handed out bookmarks reminding the holders in English and Chinese, "Reject piracy, respect honesty." Red banners with white Chinese characters declared, "Continue to fight piracy and pornography to protect the young and give them a healthy environment in which to grow up."
Over 14 million illegal publications were seized during the first quarter of the year, according to the National Office of Eliminating Pornography and Illegal Publications Working Committee.
