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Police carry out raids in Europe in 'Masterbox' case

Written by James Delahunty @ 26 Oct 2010 12:37 User comments (6)

Police carry out raids in Europe in 'Masterbox' case Police in several European countries have carried out raids in a case over counterfeit CD and DVD boxsets that stretches back to 2006.
More than 100 police officers in the four countries took action against those involved in the manufacture, supply and sale of unlicensed Masterbox boxsets that have generated millions in revenue for the criminals behind them.

The Masterbox series contained unlicensed music, films and television programmes. Each box set included an MP3 disc featuring up to 60 albums, some of them pre-release titles. Music from artists such as Black Eyed Peas, Michael Jackson, Green Day and Robbie Williams was found in the Masterbox series, which ran to more than 50 editions.

Copies of Masterbox had a street value of around €40 and were sold informally across the Netherlands. It is estimated that more than 450,000 copies of the various editions were sold, totalling more than €19 million in illegal sales.



Police searched eight business premises and five homes across Belgium, Bulgaria, the Netherlands and Spain over the last few days.

"This was a major cross-border anti-piracy action against an operation that we believe was causing very significant losses to the legitimate music industry. Police took action against a gang that had generated millions of euro in illegal revenues by infringing the rights of artists, songwriters and record producers," Jeremy Banks, director, anti-piracy at IFPI, said.

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6 user comments

126.10.2010 13:58

These are the kind of pirates they need to be going after.. not the ones who download content for their own personal use.

226.10.2010 14:23

Agreed, I reported a similar issue and bust that happened in Canada, but AD has yet to get it up. These kinds of pirates are the real Pirates. Seeking $ off copyrighted material is just utter BS and gives innocent people a bad name.

326.10.2010 19:07

Originally posted by Mysttic:
Agreed, I reported a similar issue and bust that happened in Canada, but AD has yet to get it up. These kinds of pirates are the real Pirates. Seeking $ off copyrighted material is just utter BS and gives innocent people a bad name.
Yeah makes total sense, these are the people they should be worrying about instead of trying to make examples of people who will never been able to repay the ridiculous fines that them give them.

427.10.2010 09:55

Originally posted by biglo30:
Originally posted by Mysttic:
Agreed, I reported a similar issue and bust that happened in Canada, but AD has yet to get it up. These kinds of pirates are the real Pirates. Seeking $ off copyrighted material is just utter BS and gives innocent people a bad name.
Yeah makes total sense, these are the people they should be worrying about instead of trying to make examples of people who will never been able to repay the ridiculous fines that them give them.
The entertainment business dont care if you sell or just download for fun. If you dont pay your a Pirate. So, arr mating :)

527.10.2010 22:53

Originally posted by juventini:

The entertainment business dont care if you sell or just download for fun. If you dont pay your a Pirate. So, arr mating :)
"You're a pirate" and I don't think they care about your mating habits what-so-ever.

627.10.2010 23:06

Originally posted by hikaricor:
Originally posted by juventini:

The entertainment business dont care if you sell or just download for fun. If you dont pay your a Pirate. So, arr mating :)
"You're a pirate" and I don't think they care about your mating habits what-so-ever.


arr :)

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