Italian police targeted a factory manufacturing counterfeit discs intended for export around Europe last week. The Italian Fiscal Police (GdF) raided the Bologna-based plant, which was producing unlicensed box sets that included music, films and TV programming. The raid followed an investigation into an unlicensed box set “Masterbox”, which contained music by international artists such as Bob Dylan, Depeche Mode, Eminem, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Tiziano Ferro.
Masterbox box sets had previously been manufactured in Poland, but the operation moved to Italy following raids by Polish police in February 2009. At that point, nine million copyright infringing albums in total were estimated to have been distributed around Europe, with an estimated trade value of around €19 million being put on the previous 15 editions of the box set series produced in the plant.
FPM worked with the Italian Fiscal Police to investigate the manufacturing plant that was producing new editions of the Masterbox series, while IFPI coordinated industry enquiries across Europe in support of the official investigation.
“This investigation highlights the international reach and resources available to the criminals responsible for this pirate release. The Masterbox series distributed in Europe is a classic example of a criminal enterprise involved in the lucrative business of copyright infringement,” Jeremy Banks, director, anti-piracy at IFPI, said.
“The music industry will continue to be vigilant and work internationally and locally in partnership with law enforcement to protect its rights. The Italian Fiscal Police have done a magnificent job taking decisive action and sending a strong message that they will actively investigate these types of offences.”
Result for: decisive action
One of the largest BitTorrent sites on the Internet, TorrentValley.com, has been shut down in a raid by Bulgarian authorities. The so-called Cyber Crime Unit got tipped off by the Bulgarian Association of Musical Producers (BAMP).
“Torrentvalley was a major international source of copyright infringing material. This site was a gate towards more than 5 000 torrent-trackers from all over the world. The decisive action by the authorities shows that Bulgaria is no haven for copyright abuse in Internet and makes efforts to protect the rights of those involved in the creative industries,” said the BAMP representative Ina Kileva.
The press release by IFPI estimates that TorrentValley aided the distribution of more than one million copyright infringing files.
This is not the first time Bulgarian authorities have acted against BitTorrent sites. In 2006 police arrested the admin of Arenabg.com, who was soon released due to lack of evidence.
