Top China Web Sites Join to Fight Olympic Piracy

China's top 10 Web sites are following a government order to work together to fight piracy of Olympic material, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday.

Sina, Netease, official Olympic Web site Sohu and six other sites signed an agreement with China Central Television (CCTV), which is the games' official Internet broadcaster in China, stating they will not provide video, images or content that would violate CCTV's rights, nor will they provide links to such material.

The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, China's Internet and broadcast content regulator, has ordered all Web sites to respect CCTV's broadcast rights, online and offline.

CCTV, also China's top broadcaster and domestic licensee for the 2008 Olympics, has partnerships to provide online and mobile content to 160 Web sites, in China and the Macau Special Administrative Region, west of Hong Kong.

The move may have come in part because of the filming and broadcast of rehearsals of the opening ceremonies by a Korean news team from Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS), a move that incensed the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG).

The 2008 Olympics begin Friday night in Beijing, and run through August 24.