China catches up with fugitive chief of video sharing site

The head of one of China’s most widely used video streaming platforms has been arrested and repatriated back to the mainland after 110 days on the run, Xinhua reported yesterday.

Qvod chief executive Wang Xin fled China before the authorities raided Qvod offices in April, shortly after the popular video service was accused of repeated violations of copyright law.

According to Xinhua, Interpol issued a warrant for Wang’s arrest. He was finally apprehended on August 8 in an unspecified country after spending 110 days abroad and handed to the Chinese authorities, reports said.

Qvod, founded in Shenzhen in 2007 under the Chinese name Kuai Bo, gained notoriety for its peer-to-peer video streaming application, which gave around 50 million active users access to a wide variety of pornographic content and pirated material.

In 2010, mainland authorities began investigating Wang for distributing pornography through Qvod, and in November 2013, a coalition of the country’s biggest internet video providers, including Tencent, Youku Tudou and Sohu, sued the company for unauthorised video sharing.

Qvod was fined 250,000 yuan (HK$315,000). In interviews to Xinhua in early April, Wang said the company planned to distribute only original content.