MS software pirates sent to prison

China gave its harshest sentence yet to domestic copyright violators when the mastermind behind an 11-man Chinese gang counterfeiting Microsoft software got a punishment of six-and-a-half years imprisonment and a fine of 1.5 million yuan ($220,000).

A local court in Guangdong's Shenzhen, one of the nation's top IT industrial hubs, sentenced the 10 other members of the group on Wednesday to imprisonments between one-and-a-half years and five years.

Those 10 men also received a collective fine of more than 1.5 million yuan.