Man arrested as deputies seize 50,000 counterfeit DVDs

A 27-year-old San Martin man has been arrested on felony suspicion of counterfeiting DVDs after Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputies on Sunday found 50,000 pirated copies of first-run movies in his home on Sycamore Avenue.

The DVDs had a street value of $250,000, according to sheriff’s Sgt. Don Morrissey. The man, who was not immediately identified, was booked into Santa Clara County Jail.

The movies he was allegedly copying included major first-run features such as “Charlie Wilson’s War,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” “The Golden Compass,” and “National Treasure Book of Secrets.” The movies are still being shown in theaters.

Along with the many boxes of blank and reproduced DVDs, deputies also found several sophisticated DVD copying machines in the man’s home. The man, according to Morrissey, admitted to reproducing the movies and selling the illegal copies.

The sheriff’s department’s Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT) is heading the investigation, which could turn up information of a more widespread operation.

Morrissey said counterfeiting DVDs is a fast-growing crime in the region and in California, with counterfeiters using increasingly sophisticated technology and equipment to reproduce movies. He said law enforcement agencies are training officers so they are more familiar with the new technology involved.

Sunday’s discovery and arrest come on the heels of another major DVD counterfeiting operation that was uncovered in mid-December in San Jose. Officers found 400,000 DVDs and CDs in a four-bedroom home in East San Jose worth an estimated $1 million in street value. That operation had the capacity to reproduce – or burn – 72 DVDs every five minutes. The DVDs and CDs were being sold locally, sometimes on street corners, and shipped to other parts of California for sale.

An investigator with the Motion Picture Association of America, which often is called in to assist law enforcement with media crime, said counterfeit DVD and CD labs are a $500 billion industry worldwide.

Notice how they keep mentioning “sophisticated technology and equipment to reproduce movies.”
I know someone who used to copy them in a huge quantity, whats so sophisticated about a case with dvd copiers in it, put your disc in the top you wish to copy, the blanks discs in the botton and you press “copy” hardly needs a brain surgeon to work it!

And the mention of the piracy being worth $500billion, how they come to such staggering numbers is questionable to say the least. But ultimately if cinemas and new release dvd’s was not so expensive to begin with, they wouldnt even have anywhere near as much piracy.
Also many films, cds, are total and utter sh!t, who wants to spend retail prices on cr@p, for the many years the movie and music industry has been stinging us all in the pocket, they only have themselves to blame for people not willing to put up with it anymore.