Kuala Lumpur:Malaysian enforcement officials on Wednesday arrested three Indians trying to smuggle 13,000 pirated movie disks to Mumbai.
The arrests were made at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, said the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs deputy-director of enforcement Iskandar Halim Sulaiman.
"Earlier on Tuesday too, the officials had caught several people and seized a shipment of more than 8,000 discs, these were being shipped, labeled as computer parts and destined for Johannesburg, South Africa," added Iskandar.
"Authorities have seized around 1.5 million pirated DVDs, video discs and games worth 14 million US dollars so far this year and more than 400,000 of them were bound for the foreign markets," Iskandar said.
Malaysian officials had conducted 38,069 raids last year, seizing 4.8 million pirated discs worth 27.34 million US dollars.
Hollywood seems to be the most popular choice among the pirates.
Both the India and South Africa bound shipments had recent Hollywood releases like Basic Instinct 2, Ice Age 2, V for Vendetta and more.
Malaysia has been one of the 36 countries on a US watch list of serious copyright violators. This remains a cause for concern for the movie and music industries in the US.
The Recording Industry Association of Malaysia is said to be taking actions to fight piracy in the country.
According to The New Straits Times, a Malaysia based daily, the association is taking legal actions against a popular mall operator in the eastern state of Pahang for leasing premises to vendors of pirated goods.
"The association has written to about 200 other landlords telling them to evict illegal vendors," The New Straits Timesquoted the association chief executive Tan Ngiap Foo as saying.
Iskandar confirmed the filing of the suit, and added that the ministry is also drafting laws to make it illegal for owners to rent their premises to vendors of pirated goods.
Comments
0 comment