A 38-year-old jobless man has been arrested for illegally distributing copyright movies on the Internet through Bit Torrent, which is the first successful enforcement action against P2P (peer-to-peer) file sharing.

Secretary for Commerce, Industry & Technology John Tsang said if convicted, it would deal a heavy blow to copyright infringement activities. He appealed to people to respect intellectual property rights and to not commit piracy-related offences. Parents should warn their children of the serious consequence of the offence.

Customs & Excise Assistant Commissioner (Intelligence & Investigation) William Chow said the arrest signifies the department's resolve in tracking down copyright infringing activities over P2P networks by using their expertise and the latest technology to employ round-the-clock monitoring.

On January 10 and 11, Customs officers located the suspect who had uploaded three movies onto a local Bit Torrent discussion forum for sharing with other network users. About 8am yesterday officers searched a Tuen Mun flat and seized two computers, equipment and a batch of VCDs, and arrested the suspect.

Under the Copyright Ordinance, it is an offence to distribute infringing copies of copyright works other than for the purpose of, in the course of, any trade or business to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright, without the licence of the copyright owner.

The maximum penalty is a $50,000 fine per infringing copy and four years jail.