BEIJING, July 16 (Xinhuanet) -- China film authorities and the Motion Picture Association (MPA) have signed a memorandum on the crackdown on pirated US home video products for the protection of copyrights of Hollywood movies.

    China's Ministry of Culture(MOC) and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) inked the document with the MPA on Wednesday following the bilateral consensus on protecting intellectual property rights reached during US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez's visit to China early this week.

    "China and the United States have common understandings, interests and objectives in eliminating piracy," Zhang Pimin, deputy director of the SARFT, said in an interview with Xinhua here Saturday.

    According to the memo, the anti-piracy departments in China will form action plans targeted at pirated US home video products.The MPA will submit the release date and titles of US movies scheduled to be screened in China by its member companies to the MOC and SARFT every three months, making it possible for the Chinese side to identify the pirated movie products.

    "We are very pleased to have entered into this historic agreement with the Chinese side," Mike Ellis, senior vice-president of MPA, told Xinhua in an interview.

    "And we are hopeful that this memo will benefit all film producers and distributors, not only MPA member companies," he said.

    Ellis acknowledged that "the will of the Chinese government isclearly there to crack down on piracy and protect intellectual property."

    "Unfortunately," he said, "the mountain we are climbing is highand the pirates are busy building it higher every day."

    Zhang Pimin with the SARFT said that combating piracy in China is an issue that not only attracts much attention from the American side, it also has a great bearing on the Chinese movie industry.

    "The Chinese government will soon approve the establishment of an association by which the copyrights of all movies, Chinese or American, screened in China can be protected, which means copyrights of all movies will be protected more efficiently," Zhang said.

    The MPA now has seven Hollywood member companies, Walt Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Sony.

    Chinese law enforcement authorities seized 175 million pirated audio and video discs and busted 21 underground production lines last year. Enditem