Database of Legislation

Article 217

Any of the following categories of persons who infringes upon copyright for the purpose of reaping profits shall, if the amount of illegal gains is relatively huge or other serious circumstances exist, be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and concurrently or independently be sentenced to a fine. If the amount of illegal gains is huge or other especially serious circumstances exist, the offender shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years and not more than seven years, and concurrently be sentenced to a fine:

(1) reproducing and distributing, without the permission of the copyright owner, his written works, musical works, cinematic works, television works, video works, computer software and other works;

(2) publishing a book of which another person has the exclusive publishing right;

(3) reproducing and distributing, without the permission of the phonogram or videogram producer, the phonogram or videogram produced by him; or

(4) producing and selling a work of art bearing the forged signature of another person.