Chinese procuratorates nationwide initiated public prosecution against more than 45,000 people involved in around 23,000 cases of intellectual property rights (IPR) infringements between 2016 and 2020 amid the country's heightened crackdown on the crime.

During the same period, procuratorates examined over 30,000 such cases for prosecution, the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) said Monday at a press conference.

The SPP also made public five typical cases expected to serve as a guide for the handling of similar cases.

In one of the cases, eight suspects were sentenced to imprisonment varying from four years and six months to ten months after being convicted of IPR infringement.

According to the SPP, the suspects had distributed a large number of pirated films and TV shows through multiple websites for profits between July 2017 and March 2019. The pirated materials include "The Wandering Earth" and other hit films screened during the 2019 Spring Festival holiday.

The suspects were also punished with varying fines as high as 500,000 yuan (around 77,300 U.S. dollars), the SPP said.