MUMBAI: On 2 February, a team of 16 officers from the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs (MDTCA), with support from the Malaysian Federation Against Copyright Theft (MFACT) representing the Motion Picture Association (MPA) raided a burner lab at a residential premise in Kajang, a town located about 30km south of Kuala Lumpur. This was the MDTCA’s third burner lab raid so far this year. A 32-year-old man was detained for questioning.
The 150 burners seized from the lab could have produced 8.1 million pirated discs a year, generating potential revenue of US$14.2million. The raiding party also seized 300 music CDs and 44,000 CD-Rs containing various movies and games products. Among the pirated discs seized were MPA member company titles including Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Game Plan, Aliens vs Predator 2, local Malay movie Cintaku and several Chinese movie titles.
In January this year, MDTCA crippled two burner operations. The first one was in the state of Penang where 286 DVD-R burners were found. The second was in the state of Perak where another 51 burners were confiscated.
“MDTCA’s swift action at the beginning of this year has made it extremely difficult for the pirate syndicates. The total number of burners seized this year has reached 487 and it’s barely six weeks into the year. Last year there were only 23 burners seized during the same period. As the trend of pirates using DVD- R burners continues to grow in Malaysia, the MDTCA’s aggressive efforts are very welcome,” said Motion Picture Association senior vice president and regional director, Asia-Pacific Mike Ellis.
