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Police close Polish piracy enterprise
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 13 February 2009
Police in Poland have shut down one of the biggest piracy operations in Europe, which is nice. For the record industry. Not nice for the pirates I’m guessing.
The authorities think the piracy gang they shut down distributed some nine million pirated CDs, and were behind the Masterbox series, a series of pirated DVD collections which included MP3s from over 40 albums. Four people were detained for questioning, and a whole load of pirated product and kit was seized from three locations,
Confirming the raids, the head of the enforcement unit at global record label trade body the IFPI, Len Hynds, told reporters: “This was a lucrative criminal enterprise that was based in Poland but exported pirate music and film to other EU countries. The decisive action shown by Polish police shows the country is no safe haven for such criminal enterprises”.
“Organised criminal gangs often regard counterfeit entertainment products as a low-risk revenue stream. These raids send a clear message that such a calculation is a serious mistake”.
In other anti-piracy news, a team of nine have been arrested in Glasgow in connection to a pirated DVD operation. Thousands of DVDs and hundreds of DVD burners were seized by local police.
