Nine gang members involving an international software counterfeiting scheme valued at more than 80 million yuan (11.7 million U.S. dollars) have gotten different jail terms in the last instance at the Shanghai Municipal Higher People's Court, the court confirmed Thursday.

The court sentenced the main perpetrator, Shanghai native Ma Jingyi (formerly named Ma Kepei), to seven years in jail and fined him 8.6 million yuan on Wednesday. Ma was also deprived of his political right for one year. Other gang members have received sentences of two to six years in jail.

The Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau told Xinhua that the software counterfeiting scheme was cracked down upon joint investigations by the bureau, police in southern China's Guangdong Province and their counterparts in the United States. Their joint campaign, dubbed Summer Solstice, began 2005 and lasted 17 months. The gang members were arrested in July 2007.

The gang's software counterfeiting activities happened over the past five years and involved five countries, namely China, the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia, the bureau said.

According to Thursday's China Daily, from 2003 to 2007, the gang, led by Ma, sold 677,000 copies of pirated computer software to U.S. companies and individuals for 10.48 million U.S. dollars. The gang's profit was more than 80 million yuan.

The illegally copied and distributed software was mostly an anti-virus program from Symantec.

Ma's gang, which oversaw the production of 442,000 copies of the pirated program, was convicted of infringing copyright.

Ma sold the pirated version for 15 U.S. dollar, while the authorized version cost about 39 dollars.

Source:Xinhua