Hong Kong- A counterfeiter who sold pirated DVDs to overseas buyers through the eBay online auction site has been jailed in Hong Kong, a news report said Tuesday. In the first case of its kind in the territory, 35-year-old Yung Chun-pong was jailed for three-and-a-half years Monday for possessing pirated copyrighted works and attempting to export them.
Yung, described by the judge as an "intelligent culprit," used legitimate companies, such as FedEx, to send the pirated discs overseas after packaging them, the South China Morning Post reported.
By the time he was arrested in January 2005, when customs officers detained five people and seized 46,742 discs, he had already sold discs on eBay and delivered some to the United States.
Judge Anthony Kwok remarked that these types of crimes could affect trade negotiations between China and the US, the newspaper said.
Yung's case was the first conviction in Hong Kong for copyright infringement under the Organized and Serious Crime Ordinance, which increases sentencing powers for piracy.
Pirated DVDs, CDs and software were once widely available in Hong Kong but the number of outlets has reduced dramatically since a crackdown by customs officers began in 2000.
