"This book stinks too much to be true. Mr. Wang, who lives in Luqiao District, Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province, bought a batch of children's teaching aids in November 2023, but he did not dare to give the books to his children. The books were crudely made and smelled so strong that they could be uncomfortable to smell for a while.
Mr. Wang immediately reported the case to the Luqiao Branch of the Taizhou Municipal Public Security Bureau, and the Luqiao Public Security Bureau quickly set up a special case team, starting from the clues received one after another, and searched for the people involved in the case through major shopping platforms. Soon after, the police learned that the batch of inferior books was concentrated in several online stores.
Click on the product link, on the basis of the price of genuine books, the pirated books on sale are discounted with the gimmick of "limited-time spike", "limited special" and "member exclusive", which not only conceals the identity of pirated books, confuses consumers, but also increases illegal profits. "The suspect is very cunning and will price these books at about 20% off the genuine version, causing consumers to think that they are genuine books. Wang Rudong, deputy captain of the Food and Drug Ring Brigade, introduced.
Due to their low prices and large sales, these pirated books have occupied the forefront of shopping platform searches, squeezing the sales space of genuine books. According to the statistics of the police of the special case group, the sales of these books have reached more than 800 yuan.
"The production and sale of inferior pirated books not only infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of copyright owners, but also disrupts the market order, forming a vicious circle in which bad money drives out good money, and inferior production materials may cause harm to the user's body, and we must resolutely crack down on it. Chen Peng, captain of the Food and Drug Ring Brigade, said.
After further investigation, the police learned that an online store selling pirated books was operated by suspects Ding and Liu, and that the source of the pirated books was a book wholesaler Zhang, and Zhang had a superior wholesaler, and there was a "superior" above the wholesaler.
Although the sales links are intricate, the police have learned that all the pirated books point to an underground printing factory in Shandong, and its wholesalers and sales online stores are located in Hunan, Jiangsu, and Shandong provinces and six cities.
After completely grasping this criminal chain of pirated books, in February and March this year, the Luqiao police divided into multiple routes and collected the net in batches in Hunan, Jiangsu, and Shandong, and arrested seven criminal suspects including Ding, Zhang, and Chen on the spot, and cut off all the criminal chains suspected of producing and selling infringing and pirated books in one fell swoop. More than 260,000 suspected infringing and pirated books were seized at the scene, and the amount involved amounted to more than 800 yuan. This is the largest case involving the production and sale of pirated books detected by the Food and Drug Ring Brigade of the Luqiao Public Security Bureau since its establishment.
After interrogation, it was learned that the original price of the genuine book was 39 yuan, and the price of the pirated book on the platform was 25 yuan to 30 yuan. Pirated books are made of low-cost, questionable quality materials, and the actual cost is only about 5 to 6 yuan, and the profit is as high as 400%.
At present, the case is under further investigation.
"At present, copyright infringement crimes are characterized by diversified infringement targets, online sales channels, and gangs of criminal means, which cause great harm to society. Our road and bridge public security has always adhered to multiple measures at the same time, relying on the empowerment of smart public security, constantly strengthening the ability of perception and early warning, analysis and judgment, and precise crackdown, strictly investigating and preventing all kinds of illegal and criminal acts of copyright infringement, and at the same time actively carrying out legal popularization and publicity with cases to reveal the harmfulness of such crimes, continuously improve the ability of the masses to refuse and distinguish fakes, and deter infringement and criminals. Chen Peng said.
Source: Rule of Law Daily
Review: Lu Jianwu, Zhang Yanying
Proofreading: Zhong Wei
Editor: Gui Faxuan