Mobile/PDA About Us Advertise here


		User name	Password

		Not registered yet? Register here. Lost your password? Click here.

Browse by topic

News

Pre-release music uploader arrested

24 June 2009 3:05 by Andre "DVDBack23" Yoskowitz | 2 comments

The IFPI and the City of London Police and the Intellectual Property Office have this week arrested a 33 year-old man for allegedly being part of a "scene" release group that specializes in pre-release music.

The group, DV8, has been cited in leaking 2500 albums before their retail street date. The IFPI investigation has already netted "a substantial quantity of promotional CDs, and computer equipment including an active FTP server and client and software used in connection with ripping and digitizing content."

Of late, the media trade groups have been targeting pre-release uploaders, as they find those leaks to be the most "damaging" for the labels and the artists.

David Lammy MP, Minister of State for Intellectual Property, added: "This successful operation sends a clear message - we are serious about tackling the problem of Intellectual Property theft. This is an example of partnership working between the Intellectual Property Office and the BPI and IFPI. It clearly shows the added value that our work is bringing to the wider enforcement community. I want to ensure that consumers, legitimate businesses and their employees are protected from those that choose to break the law."

David Wood, Director of Anti-Piracy at the BPI, noted: "Although the investigation continues, even at this early stage we believe that a full forensic examination of the equipment recovered will yield a lot of useful evidence and intelligence about the 'scene' and the criminal activities of those involved in pre-release music uploading."

Jeremy Banks, Head of IFPI's Internet Anti-Piracy Unit concluded: "This police action has led to the disruption of two notorious release groups that were responsible for leaking high-profile releases onto the internet. We are also currently observing a significant drop in activity from other release groups as they pick up news of the arrest."

Permalink to this article

LSU to start fining unauthorized campus file sharers (20 July 2009)

Stephen Fry defends non-commercial piracy (13 July 2009)

« Previous news article
Italian illegal music download sites forfeit $3.3 million USD

Next news article »
YouTube sued again over copyright infringement

Post your comment

Discuss this article!
jony218 (Senior Member) 24 June 2009 15:07
prerelease/postrelease/20 year release it's going to get pirated anyway. The music connoisseurs will buy it and enjoy it, the pirate will download it (because he can) and probably won't even listen to it. What I'm interested in is what kind of fine he will be getting, will he be getting a 2 million dollar (pound) fine? or is "time served" in prison good enough? [ + quote]
llongtheD (Member) 26 June 2009 3:07
Wowee! Congrats to those tenacious law officers of ours. Just think if the tens of millions/hundreds of millions of pounds were spent where they were really needed. Its a damn good thing they got those dirty copyright offenders off the streets. Maybe some people will wake up one day and look at the corporations, their lawyers, and the politicians that back them, and decide how much better life could be if we didn't have people like this running things. How many millions of taxes were swindled by these people during this time? The public is getting fleeced, but were just to stupid to realize. When will we wake up? [ + quote]