Anti-piracy campaign helps protect foreign works

Scrutiny and punishment for copyright violations in China is earning some plaudits from overseas rights holders as the battle against copycats and illegal content intensifies.

With foreign TV series and imported reality shows soaring in popularity on Chinese screens and video websites, copyright disputes from unauthorized video streaming and outright copying have hampered China's ascent to a strong intellectual property country.

"We've found some piracy cases involving formats for TV series and entertainment programs from (South) Korea, and received complaints from original rights holders or producers that their programs were reproduced illegally," Ahn Sung-Seop, regional director of Korea Copyright Commission's Beijing office, told us.