A man surnamed Zhu was sentenced to four years in prison and fined 600,000 yuan ($83,573) for infringing copyrights of China's fastest-growing toymaker Pop Mart, a Beijing court announced on Wednesday.

According to the Chaoyang District People's Court, Zhu, from July 2023 to January this year, was found to have entrusted two other individuals in a comic company to produce and sell counterfeit toy products imitating those of the Pop Mart without the consent of the copyright owners.

Zhu paid over 600,000 yuan for the goods, and then sold them nationwide through other people's livestreaming platforms, the court said.

Following the police's investigation, more than 80,000 counterfeit products were seized, with a total value exceeding 400,000 yuan, it added.

It identified Zhu's behavior as copyright infringement and imposed the imprisonment on him because his offense was severe. However, considering he confessed to the crime and actively returned the illicit gains, the court said that it showed the leniency in sentencing.

Other people involved in the case, including those from the comic company and working for the livestreaming platform, have also been given prison terms and fines for making and selling pirated products, the court said.

"With the increasingly prosperous market economy in our country, both enterprises and individuals are paying more attention to the protection of their intellectual property rights," said Wang Yang, a judge from the court.

In China, IP rights are mainly protected and regulated by the Civil Code, a fundamental law for regulating civil activities.

"When an IP infringement is harmful enough to society, it's no longer just a civil liability issue but may escalate to criminal behavior, meaning that the violator could be held criminally liable for the infringement," Wang added.

Pop Mart, founded in 2010, is a Beijing-based leading cultural and entertainment company in China. Over the past decade, it has built an integrated platform covering the whole industry chain of pop toys. And the company now focuses on attracting global artists, operating IPs, promoting pop toy culture, as well as incubating and investing innovative business.

As a latest example of the IP economy, Labubu, created by the company, is rapidly evolving from a pop culture phenomenon to a highly lucrative collectible that is taking the global market by storm.