Toronto police in CRIA raid
p2pnet news | music:- Canada is looking a little more like the US every day with foreign-based corporate record labels taking on the role of a national police force.
It’s routine in America for EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US) to use local law enforcement agencies to act as taxpayer funded industry copyright cops.
Not one of the Big 4 has a significant presence in Canada and yet, “The Canadian recording industry is applauding Toronto police for a weekend raid that saw tens of thousands of counterfeit goods seized from an east-end store,” says the Toronto Star, going on:
“I-Man Muzik was shut down and its owner arrested when police raided the Morningside Ave. store Saturday afternoon following a six-month investigation.”
The CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America) says it launched an “investigation” because of the “large volume of suspected counterfeit products openly offered for sale, the owner’s failure to stop selling products after the issuance of cease-and-desist orders dating back to December 2006, the presence of CD manufacturing equipment, and past criminal offences”.
The, “arrests by Toronto Police, and [the] CRIA’s groundwork that led to this action, demonstrate our combined determination to stop the theft of music and other intellectual property,” says the enforcement unit’s Graham Henderson (right).
“We are grateful to the Toronto Police Service, and particularly the officers at 42 Division who arranged and executed the raid, for standing so firmly behind the rights of artists and rights holders.”
It adds, “Several similar stores have been shut down and charges laid in the past as the result of CRIA working with Toronto police, Const. Wendy Drummond said.”
Toronto police officers are also well versed in world economics.
“CD recordable piracies tripled in 2001 and significantly contributed to the $5.8 billion global piracy market,” the CRIA has Drummond stating knowledgeably.
(Thanks, rhep)
Also See:
Toronto Star.- Counterfeit vendor shut down, July 17, 2007
CRIA – Toronto Police File Criminal Charges in Counterfeiting Raid, Following Investigation Initiated by Canadian Recording Industry Association, July 17, 2007
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July 18th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Does anyone really have a problem with this? Selling counterfeit goods really IS theft.
July 18th, 2007 at 10:50 am
yeh but the way it looks is police are spending too much time on this kind of thing and ignoring some of their proper police duties because of it. i think that is what jon is getting at. i say there are also lots of other people having the same problem but who arent getting the same kind of attention
July 18th, 2007 at 11:09 am
That is indeed how I see it. I agree with the first poster, although selling counterfeit items isn’t theft. It’s a kind of forgery. But I know what he/she means and as I’ve said many times, people who duplicate or copy for resale are definitely crooks and they deserve to be nailed
However, I don’t believe fake CDs and DVDs deserve the kind of government and police attention they’re getting.
Like the second poster says, there are lot of other people and businesses affected by counterfeiters, but you don’t see the mainstream media giving crooks who copy jeans, say, or sunglasses or handbags, the same kind of non-stop attention.
Cheers!
July 18th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
You’re right, of course, Jon, but it’s a lot closer to “theft” than, say, showing a bona fide purchased movie at a birthday party without checking to see if it has the letters “PPR” on it!
In the back of my mind, I’m thinking that if we (we, “Canada”) are strong on the things that really are wrong, then they’ll listen more carefully when (if) we say to them “actually, this is fair use, and no, we won’t make it a crime”.