Thaindian News

Chandigarh, April 23 (IANS) Fifteen people have been arrested and over 7,000 pirated CDs (compact discs) and DVDs were seized from their possession, Indian Music Industry (IMI) and police officials said here Friday.
On a tip-off from the IMI, the Punjab Police conducted 14 anti-piracy raids at several different places in the state since Thursday.

The raids were conducted in Ludhiana, Amritsar, Faridkot, Mansa, Batala, Pathankot and Khanna, IMI officials said.

The raids led to the seizure of a massive amount of pirated material, mobile memory chips, CDs, MP3s, DVDs, VCDs and other equipment.

The police seized 32 memory cards, 7,019 pirated CDs, nine computers, eight DVD writers, nine card readers, two mobile phones and other material used in piracy.

The police have arrested 15 people involved in piracy.

The Punjab Police last month recovered 5,909 pirated CDs of new films and arrested 21 people in this connection.

In the latest raids, the police recovered titles and MP3s of various hit movies like “Ajab Prem Ki Ghajab Kahani”, “Singh is Kinng”, “De Dana Dan”, “Jannat”, “Tum Mile” and several others.

IMI officials said the Bollywood film industry was suffering a loss of Rs.6 billion (Rs.600 crore) annually due to piracy.

They added that new formats of piracy like mobile chip piracy were leading to an estimated loss of another Rs.3 billion (Rs.300 crore).