The DVD pirates are back in the news. The UK’s Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) confiscated 680,000 pirate DVDs between January and March this year — a 41% rise on the same period in 2004. While pirate DVD seizures are on the up, Malaysia has come under pressure to crack down on pirates within it’s borders.
The Malaysian government has been accused of not acting on evidence that some of its licensed DVD plants are producing pirate DVDs. Although it has shut down the illegally operating plants, forensic examinations made by labs in London belonging to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) have shown that pirate discs from Europe, Asia, Latin America and South Africa were made at some of the legal plants in Malaysia.
Malaysia, apparently, produces 9 million DVDs a day, 10 times what it needs to fulfil it’s own consumer demand. So where do the extra discs go?
It’s nice to see that for once, it isn’t one of the film bodies or copyright agencies going after individuals, which won’t have an impact, and focusing on an entire country, an entire illegal industry, which might.
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