The people were given prison terms of up to seven years and fined as much as 105,000 yuan (US$15,400) each, the GAPP said. Over a dozen suspects from a separate pirating ring in southern China were detained last month, the statement said.

Fewer than 10,000 of the nearly 380,000 pirated materials were pornographic, the statement said. The "audiovisual discs" could be either DVDs or VCDs, which are still widely sold in small shops in China.

But in another statement on the crackdown, GAPP suggested the agency's goal was to target porn rather than intellectual property violations.