From http://arstechnica.com- As part of its war on porn, China has detained or sentenced dozens of people in connection with a piracy ring that sold pornographic DVDs and VCDs, according to China’s General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP).

Two sets of 13 people from different rings were sentenced to seven years in prison and fined up to 105,000 yuan (roughly US$15,300) on charges of copyright infringement and selling obscene materials. Another handful of suspects were detained in southern China in March, according to GAPP.

Only a fraction of the pirated discs contained pornographic materials (fewer than 10,000 of 380,000 or so), but the agency made it clear that it was targeting those behind the rings primarily because of the porn and not necessarily due to copyright violations. This isn’t particularly surprising—though China has pledged to the rest of the world that it will crack down on piracy, it has pledged to itself that it will eradicate any and all influences that may “pervert China’s young minds.”

This has led to a renewed vigor to shut down websites that peddle adult content and to even go after pornographic media on mobile phones. In fact, according to the state-controlled news agency Xinhua, authorities have successfully shut down almost 2,000 websites since the beginning of the year and arrested dozens more, including five people just last month for uploading porn to various websites from an Internet cafe. The government also has search engines like Baidu and Google in its crosshairs (along with 33 other search providers) for not doing enough to block links to porn in an “efficient” manner.

China may be able to reduce the availability of porn to some degree, but the problem with modern technology—and porn, for that matter—is that demand for it will ensure that it will continue popping up in new places. The only lesson potential porn peddlers will learn from this latest wave of prison sentences will be to better hide their illicit activities. The Internet moves quickly and search engines index new content almost as fast, so it will be next to impossible for China to eliminate porn altogether, especially online.