Loads of pop courts news today - in fact, it's a bit of pop courts special. The International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry has scored a victory in its fight against counterfeit CD operations in Eastern Europe. The Arbitration Court Of The Moscow Region has ruled that, as the IFPI alleged, a Moscow based CD manufacturer called Russobit-Soft has been illegally producing CDs from a string of Western artists, including Depeche Mode, Destiny's Child, Enrique Iglesias, Macy Gray, Michael Jackson, Radiohead, Whitney Houston and Westlife. These counterfeit CDs were then sold all over the world.
The court issued an injunction ordering Russobit-Soft to stop manufacturing any of the 30 albums named in the case by the IFPI. Additionally they will have to pay four million roubles (US$148,000) in statutory damages, plus meet a number of costs related to the case, including a "substantial proportion" of IFPI's legal fees.
The conclusion of the legal action, which began in December 2003, will give the IFPI a renewed boost in their bid to pressure the Russian authorities into assisting them in their fight against counterfeit CD piracy in the country. Russia is currently the second worse country for this kind of music piracy in the world, after China.
Welcoming the ruling, IFPI General Counsel Geoff Taylor told reporters: "This case illustrates IFPI's continuing commitment to take on CD plants in Russia that try to profit from piracy and to make them pay for their actions. But the Russian government needs to do much more to enforce against illegal optical disc production in Russia, which is spiraling out of control. It must also update Russian laws and procedures so that where copyright owners take civil action; they are able to obtain an injunction and damages that properly reflect the scale of their losses, within a reasonable timeframe."