Fakes fight: Some of the pirated optical disks seized in the case.

A 29-year-old man has been jailed for eight months for copyright infringement.

The case involved the largest quantity of pirated disks seized by Hong Kong Customs on sale through an Internet site.

The man was convicted in the Eastern Magistrates' Courts on April 6 of two counts of "selling infringing copies of copyright works for the purpose of or in the course of, any trade or business without the licences of the copyright owners" and one count of "possession for the purpose of or in the course of, any trade or business of infringing copies of copyright works with a view to committing any act infringing the copyright without the licences of the copyright owners".

The Customs & Excise Department said today that the sentence was so far the heaviest passed in cases involving piracy activities in relation to auction sites.

It warned that under the Copyright Ordinance, anyone who was found in possession of any infringing article for commercial purpose was liable to prosecution. The maximum penalty is a fine of $50,000 per infringing article and four years' imprisonment.

The court heard that in an operation on June 16, 2005, Anti-Internet Piracy Team officers arrested the man at the North Point MTR Station after he handed over a batch of pirated disks to a Customs officer posing as a customer.

Customs officers then seized from an apartment in Chai Wan a computer and more than 12,000 pirated disks of Japanese animation films and cartoons, including a cartoon film then shown on TV.

Report suspected Internet piracy activities

Since the set up of the first Anti-Internet Piracy Team in 2000, Customs officers have cracked 57 cases, including cases relating to the distribution of copyright work on websites, sale of pirated or counterfeit goods on websites or auction sites, and distribution of copyright work by peer-to-peer file-sharing software, resulting in the seizure of more than 94,000 pirated disks and 3,600 pieces of counterfeit goods, worth more than $4 million, and the arrest of 67 men and 25 women.