Pan Quark and other Chinese cloud storage platforms have started mass-deleting foreign TV content

Starting April 10, 2026, Chinese cloud storage platforms launched what is being described as the strictest copyright enforcement crackdown the industry has ever seen. Pan Quark led the action, requiring users to delete stored foreign TV shows including US, Korean, and Thai dramas, and to remove any related sharing links from social media. Thousands of shared links went dead overnight.

Bloggers who built audiences around sharing this content issued emergency notices urging their audiences to back up files before the 11pm deadline on April 10, warning that anything left untouched would be automatically purged. Accounts found in violation face suspension, blacklisting, and in serious cases, legal liability. Sharing features have been restricted or permanently disabled as the primary enforcement tool.

Users scrambled to work around the deletions by renaming files using pinyin or abbreviations, or transferring files to local hard drives and NAS devices.

Sword Net 2025

The action is part of a broader government initiative called “Sword Net 2025,” launched in July 2025, which targets copyright infringement in cloud storage and file-sharing. China's National Copyright Administration, working alongside multiple government departments, has classified cloud storage and file distribution as a priority area for enforcement. Losses attributed to piracy in the long-form drama category alone are estimated at over 20 billion yuan per year.

Quark in particular appears to have been singled out given its prominent role in how foreign content circulates. Some users noted that their Quark subscription was largely motivated by the availability of foreign dramas, and that the crackdown may significantly reduce the perceived value of a paid account. Analysts and users broadly agree that the underlying demand for pirated content will only be addressed by simplifying legitimate streaming memberships, lowering costs, and expanding licensed foreign content.

This does not affect you

If you are outside China and use QuarkDownloader to download files from Quark, this crackdown does not apply to you. The enforcement targets Chinese account holders storing and sharing content within China's platforms. You do not need a Quark account to use QuarkDownloader, and you are not subject to any of these restrictions.

If someone has shared a Quark link with you and you cannot access it directly, use QuarkDownloader to download the file on your behalf and deliver it without requiring a Chinese phone number, account, or VPN.