A Hong Kong man on Monday became the first person in the Chinese territory to be sentenced to jail for copyright violation by uploading three movies onto the Internet using a popular file-sharing software.
Chan Nai-ming, 38, was sentenced to three months in prison for illegally uploading the Hollywood films "Daredevil,'' "Red Planet'' and "Miss Congeniality,'' onto a Web site so that others could obtain them, said Judiciary spokesman Mackenzie Mak.
Chan's case was a landmark in the Hong Kong government's crackdown on online sharing of copyrighted material using the popular BitTorrent software.
The software allows computer users share large chunks of data in a speedy way.
But movie and music industries say the illegal online sharing of files causes them losses of millions of dollars a year.
Chan was found guilty last month of three counts of attempting to distribute copyrighted material without authorisation.
The magistrate who convicted him said his act greatly hurt the interest of the copyrighted material's owner although he did not make any profit from uploading the movies onto the Internet.
Because of its speed, BitTorrent steadily gained in popularity after the recording industry began cracking down on users of Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster and other established file-sharing software.
AP-Wire
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