Three people in south China's Guangdong Province have been found guilty of making 1.7 million yuan (about 218,000 U.S. dollars) by illegally selling virtual weapons and armour to players of an online computer game.

The principal offender, surnamed Zhang, a computer engineer in a trading company in Guangzhou, was given three years in prison with a reprieve of five years and a 60,000-yuan fine for infringement of copyright.

A company shareholder, Shi, was given three years in prison with a reprieve of four years and a 50,000-yuan fine.

The third member, Miss Gao, was not penalized as the court judged she had played a minor role in the case and was under the age of 18 at the time of the crime.

The trio started to operate illegal servers in late 2003. They paid 10,000 yuan to rent 15 servers and began providing services to players of "The Legend of Mir II," an on-line game developed by two companies in the Republic of Korea and operated exclusively by the Chinese company Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited.

They made 1.7 million yuan in only two years by selling the virtual weapons and armour to players until they were arrested by police on Dec. 14, 2005.

Source: Xinhua