p2pnet news view Movies | Crime:- Hollywood has succeeded in doing something right in its efforts to get a handle on counterfeit product that’s flooding underground markets.

As Bruce Schneier once said, “Digital files cannot be made uncopyable any more than water can be made not wet,” and that goes double for physical product — DVDs, sold in their billions.

Organized criminals, the real ‘pirates,’ use them as templates, buying them legitimately, ripping them, duplicating them, and selling the results on blackmarkets around the world.

And the MPAA blames file sharers.

But on this occasion, in the “first copyright matters to proceed on indictment and be heard before a jury” in Australia, Yong Hong Lin, owner of a music and movie store in Eastwood, Sydney, Australia, “was found guilty of 15 copyright offenses in Sydney’s District Court last week,” says CNet News.

He was acquitted of 16 of the 31 charges  and is slated to be sentenced on August 21.

Penalties for copyright infringement could be as high as $60,500 with five years imprisonment per offense for individuals, and up to $302,500 for corporations, the story adds.

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CNet News – Studios win Australian piracy victory, May 25, 2009