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50% of DVD sales in Ireland 'going to pirates'
Ireland's black market trade in DVDs has morphed into a multi-million euro organised crime operation with half of all new films sold now coming from pirates, said the director general of the Irish National Federation Against Copyright Theft (INFACT).
Brian Finnegan reckons about 50% of all DVDs currently being bought are on the black market, which translates into losses of about 80 million euro a year for the domestic industry, roughly half of that going directly into the pirates’ pockets.
Finnegan lamented that there was still little acknowledgement that this huge amount of money raised from the underground trade in films was funding organised crime gangs.
Speaking at an anti-counterfeiting conference, organised by the Garda, the PSNI and Interpol, Finnegan said there was traditionally a huge problem with piracy in Ireland going back to the days of VHS tapes. Since then small-time crooks operating on their own at market stalls have been squeezed out by a highly organised criminal operation.
Story filed 06.10.09
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