The efforts follow a Dec 29 announcement from SARFT and MII that websites offering such downloads must be licensed - and the only companies eligible for licenses would be State-owned or State-controlled.

During the first half of the year, there were 222.4 million users of video-sharing websites in China, accounting for 65.8 percent of its total online population, according to figures from the China Internet Network Information Center.

Many welcomed the crackdown.

Zhu Jiang, from Union Voole Technology, one of China's largest online distributors of digital content, said the closure of copyright-breaking operations will help China's legitimate online video market.

Zhu said Union Voole Technology spends between 70 and 80 million yuan a year on legitimate online video contents and is frustrated when the same material pops up on BT sites such as BTChina.

"Online distribution accounts for about one-tenth of the copyright owner's revenue in many foreign countries but the market in China is almost non-existent," he said.

Chen Yongdong, an information management expert, said on his blog Sunday the government will continue to strengthen its control over the online video market.

"But BT applications will still be allowed to exist in China if these websites get permits and pay for the copyrights," he said.