Photo: Free downloads and pirated discs? Not anymore!

Beijing, China (Friday, August 5, 2005) -- Two years ago, the Ministry of Culture initiated tough measures to crack down on the pirates targeting the blockbuster movie Hero, directed by Zhang Yimou.

With a fortune to be made by the criminals who make the copies and a fortune to be lost by the film's legitimate backers, there is much at stake. And it is not just money.

At the time, police investigated the death of a young cinema employee in Xi'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

She plunged six floors to her death two days after investigations began into the disappearance of a copy of Hero from where she worked.

Public security officers in Shaanxi looked into her death, Chinese Business News reported.

Since the premier of Hero, major cities across the country were quickly flooded with illegal copies.

Even the unprecedented copyright protection measures put in place at the first screening failed to safeguard the film.

And soon after it was shown, illegal copies began appearing

"We take seriously the task of protecting and supporting the healthy development and prosperity of the national film industry," a senior official from the Department of Cultural Market Administration, the body responsible for supervising the audio-video publishing industry, with the Ministry of Culture, told a gathering of news reporters.