Customs raid rumbles black market for primary school e-learning materials in fiercely competitive Hong Kong

Five people were arrested in Hong Kong this week for selling electronic question banks for primary schools online. Hong Kong Customs detected the operation and seized over 59,000 suspect teaching materials. The agency was tipped off by copyright owners and a big data analytics team got to work. Hong Kong Customs targeted …

[Chris G]

I don't understand from the article what law was being broken, were they cheating or just supplying non official teaching/aids?

[GrumpenKraut]

TFA: "The agency was tipped off by copyright owners..."

So breach of copyright is what I read.

[Roland6]

So can we expect Hong Kong Customs officials to be 're-educated'?

Since the widely accepted narrative is that China doesn't give a monkey's about western copyright etc. and those people arrested, were honest Chinese citizens just doing their bit to make China great again.

[TrumpSlurp the Troll]

But why?

In the UK remote teaching is available when schools are in lockdown.

Granted that a significant number of children can't access it due to lack of PCs or tablets, plus limited Internet.

However to buy these blackmarket services you would need the IT bits.

So what is driving the market?

Lack of authorised tutors, so unlicensed ones being employed who are using copyright material?

Sounds strange.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: But why?

As mentioned in the article, the absolute obsessive Asian parent mentality for your children to be better than everyone else's. Pretty much all Asian students will do more than is set by schools, for example after school studies and private tutors.

But now that's all been taken away...

[tmTM]

Don't miss

The main news article here is that someone has been busted for copyright infringement in China.

They were probably as shocked as you are.