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Thread: Giant pirate DVD factory busted in east London

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    Giant pirate DVD factory busted in east London


    A woman and four men were arrested on Wednesday (April 5) during a raid in east London on a pirate DVD factory said to be the largest yet discovered.

    Among the 300-plus titles reckoned to have been seized in the raid were Ice Age 2, a film that only goes on general UK cinema release today (Friday).

    According to anti-piracy organisation Fact (Federation Against Copyright Theft), "The premises contained over 500 individual DVD burners capable of producing over 60,000 pirate DVDs per day, with an estimated daily street value in excess of £250,000 (circa £1.7m per week)".


    More in this HEXUS.headline.

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    HEXUS webmaster Steve's Avatar
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    That's some seriously organised pirating. I wonder how many other pirates will be jealous of their hardware?
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    I wonder who gets the confiscated duplicators

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    According to anti-piracy organisation Fact (Federation Against Copyright Theft), "The premises contained over 500 individual DVD burners capable of producing over 60,000 pirate DVDs per day, with an estimated daily street value in excess of &#163;250,000 (circa &#163;1.7m per week)".
    so thats at around &#163;20.00 each... they will sell then at around 4 - 5 quid each? kinda cuts that cost down alot tbh, no one sells dvds at retail cost if they are >.> Home made <.< but its still a load of money per week
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    If your 5555... Swafe's Avatar
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    Street value of 1.7 mill my arse, the police dont know cack, he'd get 1/4 of that on thr street if lucky (Fiver a piece) Most likely 2-3 these days and hes got his overheads on top, they probably see 200k a week, IF the equipment was used to its max capacity and they could find a way to buy and sell 100k of DVDs which is hard enough, but if you order 100k of DVDs off SVP, Im sure theyd think something was up.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kaine (AoD)
    so thats at around £20.00 each... they will sell then at around 4 - 5 quid each? kinda cuts that cost down alot tbh, no one sells dvds at retail cost if they are >.> Home made <.< but its still a load of money per week
    Not quite sure I understand what you're saying.

    The value given to each DVD, by my calcs, is about £4.16 - is that also what you're saying?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Swafe
    Street value of 1.7 mill my arse, the police dont know cack, he'd get 1/4 of that on thr street if lucky (Fiver a piece) Most likely 2-3 these days and hes got his overheads on top, they probably see 200k a week, IF the equipment was used to its max capacity and they could find a way to buy and sell 100k of DVDs which is hard enough, but if you order 100k of DVDs off SVP, Im sure theyd think something was up.
    Okay, while not disagreeing with you about the max-capacity being unlikely to be achieved, Fact's calcs look correct to me. Take 60,000 (the number of discs per day) and divide it £250,000 (the money per day) and you'll see that the average price is around £4.16.

    As for SVP or anyone else tipping off the powers that be - I strongly doubt that a gang of pirates buys its blank DVDs at the same outlets that you and I do. I'd expect them instead to be buying in bulk from similar overseas sources as the firms that you and I buy from.

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    Yeah Bob is right about the prices - I think that FACT are even being a bit conservative there, pirate dvds seem to go for a fiver each at the markets..

    I don't know what they are talking about saying this is a 'big' operation though, it's not, it's tiny. Ok so for the UK it might be, but in the rest of the world - particularly asia - this is a tiny production system.

    From the pictures they look like standard dvd duplicator systems, which anyone can buy. Probably using normal dvd-r discs, maybe with lables, maybe not.

    The big time pirates own or rent time in big manufacturing plants that can produce hundreds of thousands of discs, not just 60k. They also can make them with 'pressed' dvd's, none of this obviously-a-copy-dvd-r-lark.

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    i saw ice age on mon.. must have been showing early at my local cimena
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Crabtree
    Not quite sure I understand what you're saying.

    The value given to each DVD, by my calcs, is about £4.16 - is that also what you're saying?
    yea, i would have tried to calculate that one but i got to the calculator and my brain seemed to repel my body from it ^ ^

    in that case they WOULD have been rich but you cant get away with something like this imo ever
    Quote Originally Posted by Noni
    What the hell does "WTH" mean

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    At 4.16 then a pop 420k Dvds a week would be hard to do unless you had minions working for you, and a stupidly large demand for them.

    5lab was it at the cinema, or your own 'private cinema'
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    I am *not* condoning these guys - but... ;-p
    Part of the reason they have a willing market is that we (in the UK) get to see some films so much later than the rest of the planet :-(

    When the film companies/cinemas pull their collective fingers out and use digital distribution, we won't have to wait ages to see a film and these dodgy cam jobs will have less appeal...possibly.

    W.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Spud1
    Yeah Bob is right about the prices - I think that FACT are even being a bit conservative there, pirate dvds seem to go for a fiver each at the markets..

    I don't know what they are talking about saying this is a 'big' operation though, it's not, it's tiny. Ok so for the UK it might be, but in the rest of the world - particularly asia - this is a tiny production system.

    From the pictures they look like standard dvd duplicator systems, which anyone can buy. Probably using normal dvd-r discs, maybe with lables, maybe not.

    The big time pirates own or rent time in big manufacturing plants that can produce hundreds of thousands of discs, not just 60k. They also can make them with 'pressed' dvd's, none of this obviously-a-copy-dvd-r-lark.
    And you, of course, are quite right about the scale of the operation AND the manner is which some of the really big bad boys duplicate.

    Not sure if anyone has seen the size of today's typical pressing machine but the last time I was in Japan. JVC showed me its state-of-the-art mini presses and these took up about the same amount of floorspace as a typical bathroom shower cubicle. That was back in the mid 90s so I dare not guess how small they are today (or how cheap they are to buy - relatively speaking).

    All this said, virtually ALL of the bent DVDs that I've come across have been burned, rather than pressed.

    That could mean, though, that the pressed ones are done so well - including the disc faces and the library case inlays - that I've had some pass through my hands and never realised.
    Last edited by Bob Crabtree; 08-04-2006 at 01:53 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kaine (AoD)
    : but you cant get away with something like this imo ever
    It's thinking like this that keeps most of us on the straight and narrow.

    Quite how accurate it is, though, I don't know.

    I guess it depends on how smart you are.

    But, in the case of these particular baddies, it would seem that they weren't quite smart enough.


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