A court in southern China's Guangdong province found Huang Yizhong guilty of copying and disseminating pornographic content, according to a media report posted on the official Xinhua news agency website at the weekend.

Huang had managed to accumulate more than 4,300 registered members and make nearly $500,000 in the process, the report said Sunday.

He downloaded more than 1,000 porn films, and edited them into 3,600 video clips that he put on his website, it added.

According to official figures, 5,394 people were arrested last year under a nationwide Internet porn crackdown, and 9,000 illegal porn-related sites were shut down.

China maintains strict censorship of the Internet to curb what the government deems to be unhealthy content including porn and violence -- an effort that has become known as the "Great Firewall of China."

China now has the world's largest online population at 384 million people. PTI