Pirate Caught

[TriniXaeno]

A friend just forwarded this island events news blurb to me....interesting read.

The Copyright Organization of Trinidad and Tobago made a major bust two weeks ago seizing over 5000 Cds and duplicating equipment in Arima.

The Copyright Music Organization (COTT) seized hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of music and duplicating equipment from an Arima businessman suspected of being a kingpin in the local piracy operation, through the enforcement of a civil court order.

This seizure represents the second major cull of unlawfully reproduced music products within recent times, reinforcing a COTT decision to go for civil proceedings against suspected pirates as a first option, rather than rely solely on arrests under terms of criminal law.

COTT CEO Allison Demas noted that, while civil action is much more expensive and legally intricate, its immediate effect thwarts continuing unlawful replication of works while the process is being exercised. "This is different from police raiding street vendors, who may get fresh supplies from the source as early as the next day, to continue their illegal trade," Demas said.

COTT secured on May 4th from Madam Justian order and injunction against Arthur Tanghap (trading as Quality Music Centre of Queen & Sorzano streets, Arima) and in enforcing the order four days later, seized a quantity of items from the defendant's home and business place.

Among the seized items were several computers, replete with sophisticated technology for copying music and data, stocks of blank CDs and DVDs, printers that may be used in replicating original packaging, mixers and a number of music compilations.

Included in the haul were pirated CDs and inserts from popular Shirley Caesar and Junior Gong releases, 5,213 already pirated CDs, blank DVDs, plus a quantity of blanks, printed jackets and inserts.

[Saxito Pau]

Well done COTT!!

I guess my idea of recording and selling world cup matches on DVD just went bust...

[Spazosaurus]

Remember these people was doing this on a very large scale with specialty equipment etc. As a small operator, with simply a DVD burner on a computer, you're not likely to run into a whole lot of trouble down here...as long as you keep a low profile.

The question is what are they going to do with all the duplicating equipment? Throw them in a heap and burn them? I want a portion of them blanks.

[TriniXaeno]

that's the same thing the "normal folks" getting sued by the RIAA thought.

[Kaizen]

jed like de police gone sell dvd blanks wholesale now to
WOI!
XD rofl

[Spazosaurus]

Yeah but the RIAA gone totally nuts ARRESTING PEOPLE WHO DONT EVEN HAVE A BLOODY COMPUTER for piracy. Just about anyone in the states can be taken down. As i pointed out before, down here, people would more than likely get away with a small operation if they play their cards right. COTT is not RIAA in terms of enforcement and rediculosnessity. them yankees on a higher level.

[TriniXaeno]

As they mentioned in the article, it is less important if you're guilty or not. The due process of the law will determine that. Court iymc.

What they do care about is the immediate effect of someone being taken to court and tried for piracy.

That makes great headlines and more importantly, a great deterrant for would-be pirates that think "we safe".

The RIAA had to start somewhere and you know how Trini like to follow the states.

We a couple years behind in copyright enforcement but that could change overnight.

This is just the second major bust.

[Spazosaurus]

The way i see it, there are sifferent levels of piracy. Some men take it to level that they turn it into a living. Then there are those that make a lil something on the side and those that tief for personal use. All of which are wrong all the same.

They already monitor what pple d/load in the states so pple could get busted for any kind of piracy there.

When they start doing that here, a lot of Trini's go be in trouble.

My concern is what causes a party to be singled out? The volume of content donloaded? The content itself? The source from which the content is gained?

There's lots of piracy going on all over the world right now but i hear little news of people being busted. All these people could do a lil something on a small scale burn/sell lil dvd  here and there and have a good chance of not being busted.

Them fellas that duplicate cd's dvd's like madmen is another story. The likelihood of them getting cetch is much higher than a small man.

[Crixx_Creww]

Well daak have a good point

Cott is not the RIAA , they not on their level or stupidness.
Just now the RIAA go put everyone in jail an no one will be able to buy music, and then they will be happy.
ANd thankfully the RIAA have no power outside of AMERICA , so we just hadda watch COTT like ah hawk.

Could ask de maxi men to holla at us when cott jump in dey maxi to come aress people

[TriniXaeno]

rofl @ Maximan Early Warning system

reminds me of down south where they would flash there lights to warn when police were on the prowl for speeding/overloading/etc....

[Spazosaurus]

Down south alone? It happens on Beetham too and that saved my @ss many a time.

[New Era Outlaw]

Pirate caught, eh?

GOOD! Board my boat and make ME walk the plank, will ya?
About time you eye-patch wearing FREAKS got what you deserved! Hmph!!








....oh wait. You guys were talking about a different type of pirate, weren't you?

....my bad.

[Spazosaurus]

Sigh. That cheese is at it again.

[EmpireKing]

Ha ha ha @ NEO ...he try to be funny

[metalgear2095]

At least de game pirates safe!!

[W1nTry]

Well all I have to say is duyamn, thats alot of money and strike whatever for the law. Now if they could only clean up the east west corridor we'd be in business. Small victory I suppose. On another note, if yuh get buss down mistakenly there are avenues to counter SUE for wrongful accusation, defamation, invasion of privacy, damage to materials in the discovery process, etc. it'll cost yuh but might be worth it a police buss down yuh door and take yuh gaming rig !

[mellowmeon]

next thing yuh know yuh torrenting and cott police kick down yuh door, take yuh dsl modem and yuh few spindles..

[Spazosaurus]

Nah nah they nowhere on that lvel yet...unless they get tipped off that u supplying pirates with material, in particular locally made material, which is what they seem to be concentrating on.

[W1nTry]

This is not quite the same scale but its an indication of what could go WRONG if some 'governing' or 'regulatory' body went MAD like the RIAA:

Pirate Bay raids cause mass fall out

Police and politicians in firing line


By Nick Farrell: Friday 02 June 2006, 07:11

 THE RAIDS on the P2P outfit The Pirate Bay is starting to blow up in the faces of the politicians that organised it.
Police carrying out the raid have been slammed for also shutting down dozens of small internet businesses which were not connected with the Pirate Bay but had the misfortune of using the same ISP Rix|Port80.

One, GameSwitch complained to the media that the cops had been taken by police and it had lost source code and data. The result was so bad that the outfit could not provide the service to its clients.

A spokesman for the outfit said that this was the longest downtime the company had suffered and it was affecting the company economically.

Another server which was taken down was one belonging to a lobby group called PiratByr?n which was a Swedish organisation designed to lobby and educate the populace on liberalising copyright reform. The outfit had little to do with ThePirateBay and its spokesman claimed that the police had been tricked by the music and film industry representatives Antipiratbyr?n which told the police that its servers contained copyrighted material, when it didn't.

There is also considerable support in Sweden for ThePirateBay, if only because the country does not like foreign companies telling its government what to do.

As a result, Rickard Falkvinge, head of the Swedish Pirate Party, is making much hay out of the closure. He told WiredFire that the US administration had leant on the Swedish minister of Justice to shut down thepiratebay site.

He said that "foreign governments, pressured by their corporate interests where managing to get young people arrested for something that is not breaking Swedish law".

He said that in Sweden "being a nuisance to the media industry is not illegal" X causing Y to lose money doesn't automatically make X a criminal, in Sweden. You have to actually break a law. He added that it was a "scandal of the worst sort" to have Swedish Police Force used for these purposes.

Imagine you get shut down for a couple days cause your name was similar? daz like if a BG rig get shutdown cause someone mistake a rig in T&T waters for being in Barbados??? 0_o

[UltimateGamer]

Don't mix it up my friends, the Police can only buss down yuh door if you are illegally distributing copyrited material by th COTT. And I think that anyone who burns and sells local music should go down. Lets look at the facts.

In Trinidad it have 1.3 million people for our local artist to try to make a living. Lets take away the poorer population who can't afford to pay $120 for a CD. So we left with 300,000(hehehe). Now lets take away from the people who can find a reason not to by the album cause it only have 1 good song on it. Now we have 50,000 candidates remaining. Now even if 50,000 people buy the album the artist still as made much money because the production label takes most of it.

If you burning and selling yuh just drop that number down to about 10,000 candidates not being to realistic(I thinking less) so these local artist hardly have a chance to survive.

But while on the subject of survival, it have all these youths who trying to make a dollar instead of thiefing(in a more direct maner) and police close them down too so what can they do but become another crime statistic.

The MPAA and RIAA is only allowed to attack the united states for copyrite infringment. This one is simple because you cannot make a law or enforce your law on other peoples land. In order for them to persue pirates internationally they have to get the permission of the local government. You see it in movies when a criminal is making a run for mexico. US law doesn't apply for Mexico and guess what it doesn't apply in Trinidad. It might be wrong morally but that is it. Notice that all busts done by the police is for locally copyrited music.