Cops continue to track pirates in Taiwan

MUMBAI: Taiwan’s IPR Police acting on information provided by the Taiwan Foundation Against Copyright Theft (TFACT), representing the Motion Picture Association (MPA), raided another DVD-R burner lab in Taichung City. One man was arrested in the raid and 47 DVD-R burners were seized. The lab was part of a pirate network targeted by the Police earlier this year.

In addition to the burners, the Police also seized 10,809 pirated DVD-Rs, which infringed 200 MPA member company films, including The Bourne Ultimatum, Die Hard 4.0, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Wild Hogs.

The DVD-R lab was owned by the same pirate syndicate raided by TFACT in April this year, where 73 burners were seized. Undeterred, the syndicate continued to use flyers and offered express delivery services for their pirated discs to customers all over Taiwan. The combined seizure of DVD-R burners could have produced over five million pirated optical discs in one year, generating potential revenues almost $18 million.

“Persistency pays in the fight against piracy. This is burner lab number 24 that has been taken down by the Taiwanese authorities so far this year. By bringing down operations which would have the potential to generate millions of dollars worth of illegal product, they are hitting these big fishes where it really hurts – their bottom line,” said MPA Senior Vice President and Regional Director, Asia-Pacific Mike Ellis.

TFACT Executive Director Spencer Yang also praised the IPR Police and noted, “So far this year, a total of 763 DVD-R burners have been seized surpassing last year’s total of 732, indicating a clear trend of pirates moving away from the lower quality CD-R burners to higher quality DVD-R burners.”