China's copyright watchdog to widen supervision

China's copyright watchdog will supervise service giants of the Internet, including the Apple Store, aiming to fight against online piracy and complaints from production companies.

The National Copyright Administration supervises 19 major websites across the country and said on Tuesday that they plan to widen their range of supervision this year.

Duan Yuping, copyright supervision officer, said some big online service platforms, such as the Apple Store, Taobao and Amazon, will be among websites to be supervised. In addition, video and music on five more websites will also be protected under the authority's supervision, she added.

The administration developed a campaign to crack down on online piracy in 2005 and has seen great progress since then, according to a statement from the authority. From 2005 to 2012, 4,051 copyright infringement cases have been resolved and 1,725 websites have been shut down, taking over 1,041 servers and issuing fines totaling 7.83 million yuan ($1.27 million), the statement said.

In addition, the authority has transferred 229 criminal cases to legal departments over the past eight years, according to the statement.