Shanghai-based Yue Ying, one of China's most notorious retailers of pirated goods, has been ordered to pay about £15,000 in damages to studios including Columbia, 20th Century Fox and Paramount over the sale of thousands of fake DVDs of Hollywood blockbusters.

The ruling by the Shanghai No 1 Intermediate People's Court marks a small victory in a long-running war against piracy being waged by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPA) and other bodies attempting to safeguard intellectual property rights in China.

Yue Ying's shops have been ordered to close down before, only to reappear in locations elsewhere in Shanghai, reflecting the challenge authorities face in enforcing such court decisions.

Earlier this week, China's soaring illicit trade in counterfeit products was thrown into the spotlight again when Chinese police and the FBI infiltrated a gang suspected of forging Microsoft software worth at least $500m (£244m).

The raids on what Microsoft called the largest counterfeiting ring of its kind in the world came at the end of a long investigation into suspected gang members in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, just across the border with Hong Kong.

Story filed 29.07.07