5 million pirated discs found in Asia-Pacific

Posted by Budi Putra on February 7th, 2007 filed in Asia, Asia: China, Asia: Hong Kong, Asia: India, Asia: Indonesia, Asia: Korea, Asia: Malaysia, Asia: Philippines, Asia: Singapore, Asia: Taiwan, Asia: Thailand, Breaking News, News, Software, Statistics

How to solve the software, content and applications piracy particularly in the developing countries? Just simply sell the CDs in local-standard price or if you believe, for instance, piracy will help the developing countries grow, you don’t need to worry and just let it be :-).

Officials seized nearly 5 million pirated discsand arrested 870 people in a two-month anti-piracy operation in 12 Asia-Pacific nations, organizers of the sting said Wednesday.

Operation Trident involved a total of 1,874 raids by nationallaw enforcement agencies, according to a statement by the Motion Picture Association, which coordinated the December to January operation.
The raids targeted pirate production facilities, piratedoptical discs from street vendors, retail shops and markets; and the exporters of pirated DVDs and VCDs, the statement said.

Illegal copying of music, movie and software is a costly problem in China, Malaysia, Thailand and other Asian countries,where manufacturers and legitimate sellers lose billions ofdollars (euros) to piracy.

While Malaysia conducted the most raids - 606, with 329 peoplearrested - it was China where officials seized the most discs: 2,927,642 of the 4,832,934 total.

MPA officials were not immediately available for comment. Trident operations were conducted in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

In 2006, nearly 12,400 raids resulted in the seizure of more than 35 million illegal optical discs, 4,482 optical disc burners and the break up of 50 factory optical disc production lines, the statement said.

The U.S.-based MPA conducts investigations around the world on behalf of major global motion picture companies. Its statement quoted a recent study saying MPA studios lost US$6.1 billion to worldwide piracy in 2005, including bootlegging, illegal copying and Internet piracy. Approximately US$1.2 billion of that number came from piracy in the Asia-Pacific region, the statement said.

Source: The Jakarta Post