Fourteen people working for YYeTs.com, a popular pirated video platform that offers online streaming and download services of subtitled foreign television shows and films, have been taken into custody for alleged copyright infringement, Shanghai police officials announced yesterday.

The website has more than 20,000 TV shows and films and over 8 million registered users.

Shanghai police said they nabbed the suspects over the piracy case involving more than 16 million yuan (US$2.5 million), in cooperation with police in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and the provinces of Shandong and Hubei.

Police began investigating the company last September after discovering some of its programming lacked authorization from copyright holders.

The ensuing investigation showed that since 2018, the suspects founded several companies and set up servers inside and outside China to develop and operate the website and app of YYeTs.com.

They downloaded videos from foreign pirated video websites, translated the videos into Chinese and uploaded the subtitled videos to their servers for dissemination, without the authorization of the copyright owners.

They allegedly paid translators about 400 yuan for each episode or film translated. They made illegal profits by charging membership fees and advertising fees, and selling portable hard drives storing the pirated videos.