The Shenzhen-based offices of Kuaibo were raided by police yesterday, just days after the company made a promise to remove pirated content and secure rights to legal stream licensed content.
The police statement released online said that officers were responding to complaints made by citizens over the broadcast of obscene and illicit material. Police arrived at the Kuaibo offices in two large buses, and seized computers and equipment.
Kuaibo confirmed that police did visit their offices, but denied that any arrests of staff personnel were made. As well, Kuai affirmed that their business is still operating as normal. At this time, Kuaibo’s website is still up and operational.
This show of force against the notorious video pirates, best known for their QVOD video-sharing app, comes at a time when many popular mainstream video streaming services have paid huge sums to procure licensed content legally. These major players of the online streaming market in China mounted a legal challenge against Kuaibo last year.
Tech in Asia offers this analysis of the changing landscape of copyright infringement in China:
In theory, there’s less need to pirate TV shows in China than in most other countries as it’s actually surprisingly easy to watch popular shows for free…Up against so many big-name and big-money companies, Kuaibo hasn’t specified how it can afford to buy the licenses to stream popular TV shows or movies.