Entertainment industry wants downloaders targeted as well
The government's desire to promote Hong Kong as a bastion of intellectual property protection led to the world's first trial and conviction of a BitTorrent user last week as Chan Nai-ming was found guilty on three counts of distributing infringing copies of copyrighted movies on the internet.
The government wants to be seen to be taking steps that will convince companies that Hong Kong is a safe place to develop intellectual property and that wrongdoers will face criminal prosecution, unlike other territories where civil litigation is the norm for file-sharing cases.
'Online piracy by way of BitTorrent came as a fast attack to the copyright industry at the beginning of 2004,' Tam Yiu-keung, head of the Intellectual Property Investigation Bureau, said.
'Hong Kong Customs watched the development closely and maintained frequent dialogue with industry representatives to see what could be done to stop the growing trend of BT infringement.'
While those industry representatives are no doubt pleased with the verdict, it is difficult to see how the ruling will have a long-term impact without further action on the part of the government or industry.