Man tried for copyright infringement over movie website

A 24-year-old man who illegally linked online films offered by other sites to his own website stood trial on Monday for copyright infringement in Putuo District People's Court.

The man, surnamed Zhang, an unemployed migrant from Guangdong Province, came up with an idea for a website with links to pirated movies from other sites when a friend told him that running such a website can make money, according to prosecutors.

After learning from an online forum how to set up and maintain a website, he registered the domain name "www.1000ys.cc" in 2009 and had his own website the next year with a server in Zhejiang Province. He linked 941 domestic and overseas pirated movies, mainly from another illegal website, to his website and made 100,000 yuan from the pop-up ads from Baidu between February 2010 and September 2012.

The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television found Zhang's illegal website in July 2012 and informed Shanghai police. With the assistance of Beijing police in obtaining the suspect's information from Baidu, Shanghai police identified the website owner as Zhang and caught him at his house in Guangdong Province, seizing his computer's hard disk on September 5, 2012.

Zhang was charged with copyright infringement. The court didn't issued a ruling on Monday.