Matti Robinson
29 Jan 2008 5:14
During the first two weeks of January, IFPI organized 335 raids in Brazil targeted on Internet cafes. In the announcement by IFPI yesterday the mission was called a success with more than 2,000 computers seized and over one million illegal audio tracks found. However, during the operation only one arrest was made by the 600 Special Ops police officers involved.
Most of the raids were conducted in the Sao Paolo area with the help of Associacao Anti-pirateria de Cinema e Musica (APCM) - Brazil's movie and music anti-piracy lobbyists. To justify the raids on Internet cafes, the IFPI claims that 20 percent of Brazilians visit Internet cafes to download illegal content and sometimes burn the files to discs.
IFPI also considers Brazil to be one of the largest black markets for entertainment media in the world with an estimate of almost 50 percent of CDs and DVDs sold are Bootlegs.