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Life In Prison For Porn

written by John Chow on November 22, 2006

Big Idea Mastermind

Wow, better not run a pron site if you live in china. Reuters has a news story about the founder of China’s biggest pornography Web site getting life imprisonment.

A Chinese court sentenced the founder of the country’s largest pornography Web site to life imprisonment on Wednesday and jailed another eight of the site’s organizers, state media reported

The Taiyuan Intermediate People’s Court handed down the sentence to Chen Hui, 28, and ordered the confiscation of 100,000 yuan ($12,500), Xinhua news agency said. The other eight were jailed for terms ranging from 13 months to 10 years.

Chen started “Pornographic Summer” in 2004 and went out to start three more porn sites. Like most porn sites, Chen made money by charging registration fees. His sites had 600,000 members who paid $25 to $33 to see the dirty stuff. The court was able to confiscation only $12,500 from Chen so it looks like he did a good job hiding his money, not that it will do him much good now.

China has an army of cyber police who patrol the Internet, but their targets are more often politically sensitive websites. I guess they’ve taken care of most of those and are now going after the porn sites.

The Internet looks very different when viewed from China. For example, a Google USA image search for the term “tianamen” produced these images. However, enter the same search term in Google China and you’ll get these nice vacation pictures.

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{ 13 comments }

HMTKSteve November 22, 2006 at 12:29 pm

I guess pron doesn’t pay in China?

I wonder what will happen to all the peopl on his membership list?

Rex November 22, 2006 at 12:47 pm

Is the site for sale? LOL

Ed November 22, 2006 at 12:56 pm

It’s just so backwards in China when they can’t even deal with events like Tianamen Square. In the same way…porn isn’t a crime…why did the poor bastard get life?

Shane November 22, 2006 at 1:34 pm

Nathan Rothschild on investing: “I never buy at the bottom and I always sell too soon”

Chen didn’t get out soon enough – but I guess when you’re grossing close to $20MM after only a couple years, it’s pretty tough to walk away, no matter how risky it is.

Nomar November 22, 2006 at 1:59 pm

hmm im getting the same images from those 2 links… hmm he must be a master in hiding money hehe :)

Paul November 22, 2006 at 2:30 pm

John, do you think your site johnchow.com has good relative ranking at Google China?

John Chow November 22, 2006 at 3:31 pm

I’m at the #1 spot at Google China. :)

StrangeProgress November 22, 2006 at 4:07 pm

Its certainly a hotbed over there – irritate the government and you’ll know all about pretty quick.

Surprised he lasted that long. It may be a seedy industry, but it sure as hell doesn’t deserve jailtime, let alone LIFE imprisonment!

In China does wealth = early release (as in so many US/European cases of rich celebs/businesmen using their Monetary Might to suddenly “contribute to society” in a big way, easing their sentence?

I’m assuming it doesn’t work that way there?

siong1987 November 23, 2006 at 5:14 am

tian an men incident is sensitive issue in China. So, definitely China google will block it.

Magnus November 23, 2006 at 9:31 am

Hmm, i am getting the same images. When I enter google.cn it redirects me back at google.com. Anyone else get this?

Mayo November 23, 2006 at 10:55 am

Chinese censorship is a mockery!
I heard that the government doesn’t allow to transfer images of Shanghai and other highly developed cities to local TV stations, so that the rural Chinese doesn’t get too agitated and cause a riot… by the way i saw when they had a riot against taking they’r agricultural land to make a industry park… men they were pissed…. :) also in Shanghai the people who don’t want to get out of the center of the city and go to some shoddy 1 room apartment are left to rot alonside with the rats… i mean the corrupt government is so couckup that they could blow each other’s di#ks :)

It’s ok to be against bad models(sex, drugs and R&R) but let’s be honest, who consumes more cocaine, porn sites and prostitutes … the avg. Chinese citizen or a corrupt govt. official???

David Mackey November 23, 2006 at 9:37 pm

Wow. A lifetime is a long time. Any chance of parole?

Paul November 24, 2006 at 1:59 pm

wow, John, #1 spot at Google China is very impressive!! But did you get lots of “quality” traffic from China? I mean… different location has different culture. Even though people here love your site (including me), people there might not?