Crime fighters: Secretary for Commerce & Economic Development Frederick Ma presents trophies to outstanding Youth Ambassadors Against Internet Piracy.

Eleven Youth Ambassadors Against Internet Piracy have been hailed for their enthusiastic support and outstanding contribution in helping the Government curb online piracy activities.

Officiating at a ceremony of the Youth Ambassador of the Year Activity at the Customs & Excise Training School today, Secretary for Commerce & Economic Development Frederick Ma presented trophies to the outstanding ambassadors.

Mr Ma said the Youth Ambassador Against Internet Piracy Scheme was a success and since its launch in 2006, the Customs & Excise Department has received from the youth ambassadors 1,600 reports of infringing BitTorrent seeds involving suspected pirated copyright works.

About 80% of these infringing seeds were swiftly removed by the webmasters of the BT discussion forums. The remainder were found to have invalid connections.

Mr Ma said the ambassadors have set a good example in combating piracy activities and he encouraged young people to continue supporting to the scheme.

The Government has spared no effort in the protection of intellectual property rights by providing the creative industry with a level playing field conducive to enhancing Hong Kong's overall competitiveness, he added.

The Customs & Excise Department has taken various other initiatives to protect intellectual property rights.

These include setting up Anti-Internet Piracy Teams to investigate criminal piracy activities on the Internet, the Lineament Monitoring System to enable round-the-clock monitoring of illegal file sharing activities and the e-Auctioning with Integrity Scheme to suppress online sale of pirated goods.