A woman and four
men were
arrested on Wednesday (April 5) during a raid in east London on a
pirate DVD factory said to be the
largest yet discovered.
Among the 300-plus titles reckoned to have been seized in the raid
were
Ice Age 2,
a film that only goes on general
UK cinema release today (Friday).
According to anti-piracy organisation Fact (Federation Against
Copyright Theft), "The premises contained over 500 individual DVD
burners capable of
producing over 60,000 pirate DVDs per day, with an estimated daily
street value in excess of £250,000 (circa £1.7m per
week)".
As you can see from the above Fact-supplied photo, the pirate operation
looks to have had rows of multi-DVD burners of the
sort
readily available on the net and at computer fairs and legitimately
used by many businesses, including wedding videographers.
Fact says that the raid, conducted by police officers and trading
standards officials, followed an investigation into the supply
of
counterfeit DVDs across London and the south east of England. The
Metropolitan Police's new Film Piracy Unit (FPU) was, it
says,
involved in the raid and will be carrying out a detailed investigation
into the finances surrounding the pirate operation.
Commenting on the raid, Fact director general Raymond Leinster said,
"This operation
in conjunction with Waltham Forest Trading Standards, Waltham Forest
Police and the Met’s Film Piracy Unit, is another major
intervention
against organised crime in the UK. We are determined to work
together with the police and other enforcement bodies to ensure that we
continue to disrupt the supply chain and affect the distribution of
counterfeit films across the UK."
Waltham Forest spokesman Gavin Douglas said that the borough, "has a
zero-tolerance attitude to organised counterfeiting and will continue
to enforce this policy". The raid, he said, "will have a major impact
on the pirate DVD sellers operating in the local area and will help
reduce the criminal activity brought into local communities by this and
associated crimes".
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HEXUS.community :: your right2reply
At 4.16 then a pop 420k Dvds a week would be hard to do unless you had minions working for you, and a stupidly large demand for them.
5lab was it at the cinema, or your own 'private cinema' ;)
local cineworld- went to see something else and saw ice age insteadQuote
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