MUMBAI: On 27 March, 2008, 10 officers from the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs (MDTCA), with the support of investigators from Malaysian Federation Against Copyright Theft (MFACT), representing the Motion Picture Association (MPA) in Malaysia, raided a DVD-R burner lab in Kajang, seizing 323 DVD-R Burners.

This is the eleventh burner lab that has been taken down this year.

MDTCA officers also seized an estimated 30,000 pirated discs, which infringed MPA ember company titles including Jumper, Hitman, Cloverfield and The Spiderwick Chronicles.

The DVD-R lab raided was believed to have been in operation for about four months. It is estimated that the lab had a production capacity of more than 17.4 million pirated discs, potentially generating criminal revenues of more than $51.2 million.

"As we have anticipated, more pirates in Malaysia and in the region are using DVD-R burners to produce pirated discs. The seizure from yesterday’s raid brings the total for the year to 1,453 burners. This is a 945 per cent increase year-on-year as compared to the 139 seizures in the corresponding period in 2007 (January – March)," said MPA Asia-Pacific president and managing director Mike Ellis.

"Kudos once again to the MDTCA for taking the pirates head on. With the launch of their K9 unit earlier this month, we are certain that they will continue to make it harder for these burner labs to operate in Malaysia," said Ellis.

On 26 March, the enforcement team raided a burner lab located in a residential premise in Kuala Lumpur. The raid on the lab, the 10th to be shut down this year, yielded a seizure of 69 DVD-R burners as well as more than 50,000 pirated DVD and CD games discs mainly for the PC platform.