A seven-month long investigation culminated in members of Taiwan’s Intellectual Property Rights Police Team arresting four individuals believed to be responsible for a hefty videogame piracy ring operating in Taiwan and China.
The investigation resulted in the September 27 raid of a warehouse in Sanchong City, Taiwan, where 140,000 pirated game discs for the PlayStation 2, Wii and Xbox were discovered, reports Focus Taiwan. The value of the seizure was estimated to be over $8 million U.S.
The fours suspects, named Chou, Wang, Wu and Liu had reportedly “shuttled between Taipei and China's Guangzhou, where the factory forging the discs is located.” The suspects would take delivery of the pirated goods at an airport, or would play “the part of customers by placing orders with stores for games, which the ring itself would then supply,” all to try and generate a string of records that would appear valid.
An Intellectual Property Rights Police Team official stated that the seizure included, “Nearly all of the pirated disc inventory in Taiwan,” adding that, “There must be a shortage on the market now.”
Comments
Re: Huge Piracy Ring Smashed in Taiwan
This isn't a person putting up a torrent of a game and letting people download it for free. This is a group of people making counterfeit game discs and selling them to stores as the real deal, and keeping the money for themselves. Instead of legitimate suppliers getting paid (and in turn, the people who worked on the games) some people with DVD burners are making money.
I must admit though, piracy is the wrong word for what's going on here.
Re: Huge Piracy Ring Smashed in Taiwan
In the midst of the violent crime out there, this is what the police are focused on? How is this piracy? Did they steal official copies of the game by violent force from a transport and try to sell them? If not, this is not piracy. It saddens me that such a term is applied to the act of copying. Such acts do not fit the original definition of piracy, but if you look up the term today, the definition now includes "the unauthorized reproduction of protected works." It's just semantics. People wouldn't rally behind the "war on infringement/copying" as much as the "war on piracy". It's easier to make the public hate the "thieves" rather than "infringers". These words were chosen specifically because they carry a negative connotation that would foster disdain for the people that are so labeled. It's not piracy. Call it what it is: unauthorized copying or infringement. http://www.blackgate.net/blog/copying-is-not-piracy/
-Greevar
-Greevar
"Paste superficially profound, but utterly meaningless quotation here."