Four executives of online video service Qvod were sentenced to up to three and a half years on Tuesday for spreading pornography for profits, according to a Beijing court ruling. [Photo: Beijing Haidian District People's Court]

Four executives of online video service Qvod were sentenced to up to three-and-a-half years on Tuesday for spreading pornography for profits, according to a Beijing court ruling.

Wang Xin, former CEO of Shenzhen-based Qvod Technology Co. Ltd., was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison and fined 1 million yuan (149,254 U.S. dollars), according to Haidian District People's Court.

The other three executives were handed prison terms of up to three-years-and-three-months and must pay fines of up to 500,000 yuan, according to the court.

The company was fined 10 million yuan.

Qvod was found to have hosted and streamed a large amount of pornography and pirated content and had generated a substantial income by charging users and advertisers.

According to Haidian District People's Procuratorate, 21,251 of 29,841 files that police obtained in 2013 from four servers used by Qvod were pornographic.

The court heard that Qvod had been punished twice for spreading pornography in the past.

After it was first punished by Internet security authorities, the company set up an information security group, which was tasked with monitoring content across the site, however, the court said the group was ineffective.

In August 2013, Qvod was punished by the broadcast and media authority in Nanshan district in Shenzhen, and Niu Wenju, one of the three executives, signed the resultant notice.

"Wang Xin was not only aware of the pornography, but took measures to prevent the files from being found," said the judge.

The court believed that despite being punished, Qvod continued to turn a blind eye to the graphic content, as it was generating such huge profits.

"Qvod is duty bound to ensure Internet security," said the judge. "It should have the ability to do so, and pay for necessary cost."

Wang Xin said, "Hopefully this case will serve as a lesson to those in the industry, and encourage them to improve internal processes."