A NANSHAN District technology firm suspected of both disseminating pornographic videos and copyright infringement is being investigated, Shenzhen police said.

    Shenzhen QVOD Technology Co. is a developer of streaming media applications. A key product of the company is the online video player app distributed under the two names, QVOD and Kuaibo.

    On Tuesday, as part of an ongoing investigation, Shenzhen police entered the company’s two-story offices in the High-tech Industry Park in Nanshan District. During the officers’ inspection, nearly all computer displays in the offices stayed dark. Employees remained at their work space, but did little or no actual work.

    After police commenced their investigation, the company issued public comments via its official Weibo account. The posts in part stated that it was only a rumor an employee was under arrest and that the company was operating as usual.

    The QVOD player allegedly allows users to watch online videos, including pirated and pornographic videos. Reportedly this is the primary cause of the investigation and also why the company is widely criticized, industry insiders said. Reportedly QVOD generates a substantial portion of it profits by offering other video products on its player without the consent of the producer, while also allowing pornographic websites to access the player.

    Last year QVOD was fined 250,000 yuan (US$40,000) for copyright infringement.

    Some of the app’s functions that may infringe on copyrights or may contain pornographic videos were removed, media reports said.

    Just a few days before the investigation got underway, the company announced it will spend a minimum of 100 million yuan to acquire video copyrights while investing another 30 million yuan in developing domestic micro teleplays.

    Shenzhen police said the case is being supervised by the public security ministry as part of a special law enforcement operation targeting online pornography.

    (Zhang Yang)