AfterDawn: News

Canadian law enforcement seizes $800,000 worth of counterfeit products

Using four search warrants at the Pacific Mall on Steeles Avenue in Markham, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police seized about $800,000 worth of counterfeit goods. The number of seized products was staggering, approximately 30,000 music/movie DVDs, 3000 optical discs (games), 1600 multi-game cartridges and approximately $36,000 in Canadian currency. The RCMP tried to explain to the management and staff of several stores that some of the goods they were selling were in fact counterfeit.

"The theft of intellectual property is a serious crime which negatively impacts legitimate businesses by unfair competition," said Constable Judy Laurence of the FES. "The reason the RCMP undertook this initiative is two-fold. It sends a message to counterfeiters that their actions will not be tolerated and it also gives business owners who may not have known that they were breaking the law by selling counterfeit products, the chance to discontinue their criminal activity."



Experts from the Entertainment Software Association, Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association and the Canadian Recording Industry Association assisted the RCMP in the searches, helping to determine exactly what was legitimate and what was counterfeit. "On behalf of our member company motion picture studios, the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association would like to thank the RCMP for their enforcement efforts of last week at the Pacific Mall," said Serge Corriveau, Vice President, Anti-Piracy Operations.

"Motion picture piracy costs the movie industry $3.5 to $4 Billion (US) a year worldwide, and this activity also presents a tremendous loss of taxable revenue for legitimate Canadian businesses." he added. No arrests were made however but investigations continue.

Source:
newswire.ca

Written by: James Delahunty @ 5 May 2005 8:57

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• 7 comments

• c4iscool

  Motion picture piracy costs the movie industry $3.5 to $4 Billion (US) a year worldwide
  
  
  I can't see how it could be so much. if i bootleg a movie and it's good i always go see it or rent it but if it's crap then i don't go see. bootlegging just saves me time. and how i see it i spend alot of money at the movies so they at less own me a preview before i see it.

  5.5.2005 10:05 #1

• nonoitall

  No, no, no. The piracy itself probably accounts for 10% of that figure or so. The rest is what they pay for lawyers and representatives that try to make them look good while they attack poor people with lawsuits. ;)

  5.5.2005 12:12 #2

• Rosco404

  Thats a lot of stuff!! Its good they got closed down but there will always be another like it somewhere just around the corner sprouting up... The cycle continues.

  6.5.2005 01:56 #3

• EricCarr

  Have they ever thought that maybe they are losing money because of the crap movies being put out today? There are lots of remakes, and TV shows turned into movies. No one wants to go spend lots of $$$ to go see a terrible film.

  6.5.2005 02:30 #4

• The_OGS

  Steeles Ave. is the northern boundary of Toronto, anything north is called Markham Ontario.
  There is a huge oriental community with vast malls, sometimes without even any signage in English!
  It's very unusual to see any retail piracy like this in Canada, where legit DVDs are plentiful (and dirt-cheap)...
  For anyone to take the time to copy a movie, recode it to SVCD, burn it, print packaging etc. and offer it for sale for a whopping $4 bucks ($3 US.) is truly bizarre ;^)
  Those huge dollar numbers quoted are heavily inflated - it's like when they confiscate drugs and quote the price x $15/gram, you know? Highly speculative & removed from reality...
  But anyway, most citizens would never encounter these stores and their offerings (and they count on that) so it is quite a surprise to us Torontonians, too!
  The thing is, these products are not being made here - they are made in the orient, then imported in bulk to Canada and offered through these 'unique' distribution channels.
  SOMEbody must be makin' a buck though, LoL :^)
  With retail sales taxes of 15% in Ontario, there is already a huge problem of grey-market economy and no paperwork, the beat the government.
  It is this environment that facilitates and encourages what these ingenious orientals are doing...
  So I don't believe the problem can be expected to go away any time soon.
  Note: It's good to see the RCMP doing something (besides spying for George) for a change ;^)

  6.5.2005 06:53 #5

• GrayArea

  c4iscool- " Motion picture piracy costs the movie industry $3.5 to $4 Billion (US) a year worldwide"
  
  I bet that number includes estimates of P2P movie download numbers as if each one was equal to a lost DVD sale in addition to the estimates of retail piracy which again they try to portray as if each illigitmate sale equaled a lost "ligit" disc sale. Sure, they are loosing some sales, but IMHO the "$3.5 to $4 Billion (US) a year worldwide" figure is pure rubbish.
  
  They're whining all the way to the bank toting bags of money so heavy they can barely carry them. Poor SOBs.

  6.5.2005 12:28 #6

• cwatters

  The operation at Pacific Mall was just too blatant to ignore. Everyone was buying these counterfeit DVD for $5. and it was all in the open. Nothing like rubbing the industry's nose into it.
  Interesting to note that when one tried to copy these disc using MTR, it was very problematic as there were some deliberately bad tracks. While the operator of the both were Asian, often the FBI warning were in Spanish. Sometimes the format was PAL. They had been selling these discs for months..

  8.6.2005 17:44 #7