The BPI has announced that Robert Langley, the guy who was selling bootleg Led Zeppelin recordings, has been handed a 20 month sentence for copyright infringement. Langley, whose court case in Glasgow scored a bit of rock n roll when Jimmy Page testified for the prosecution, originally pleaded not guilty, but then changed his plea mid-trial. The BPI says that Langley is the last of a network of serial music bootleggers (of the kind who sneakily record live performances and then sell them without permission of the artists or their labels) to be brought to justice and, as such, the sentence is good news for the wider record industry.
Commenting on Langley's sentence, BPI anti-piracy manager David Wood told reporters: "We owe a debt of gratitude to both Strathclyde Police and the Fiscal Service for putting this case together, and bringing this notorious bootlegger to justice. Jimmy Page's decision to give evidence at the trial in person was instrumental in bringing this case to a swift and satisfactory conclusion and for that we owe him our most sincere thanks".
He continued: "That Langley is the last of the big bootleggers to be brought to justice is also hugely satisfying for us, but the piracy problem our industry faces has been transformed hugely in the last 10 years. Serious organised criminals now control the distribution of fake CDs, DVDs, games and software, and internet piracy has engendered a culture of mass online copyright theft. But as this case shows, by working with closely with the authorities we can bring people who profit from music theft to justice".