The court of Beijing's Haidian district on Thursday opened trial proceedings against four executives of one of China's most popular video software systems for spreading pornographic material.
Prosecutors said that 70 percent of videos stored on the servers of Shenzhen-based software company QVOD Technology were found to contain pornographic material. The court had not given a verdict on the case as of press time.
The four executives, including chief executive officer Wang Xin, used the video site to make profits even though they knew that pornography had been shared and viewed through their software, prosecutors said.
However, Wang and the other three executives have denied the court's accusations, saying that the company was only engaged in developing the technology and had no role in spreading pornography.
"We did not know what contents our users would play with our software," said Wang.
Wang admitted that he knew some users had used the player to watch pornography but that there was no way to block illegal video content given the capabilities of current technology. He said that the company established a tip-off mechanism and a system to filter out videos with certain file names.
The company created its peer-to-peer video streaming technology in 2007, and its user base grew to 300 million.
In April 2014, the company shut down its QVOD servers after the National Copyright Administration said it violated copyrights. The company was fined 260 million yuan ($41.6 million) for copyright infringement in June.
