CD writers and other equipment worth Rs. 6 lakh seized
— Photo: K. Manikandan
BIG HAUL: Pirated CDs seized from a house in Selaiyur on Tuesday.
TAMBARAM: Police have arrested two youths, in their early twenties, on charges of downloading audio and video compact discs of latest Tamil and English films and selling them to pavement vendors. Audio CDs, and Digital Video Discs, CD writers and other equipment, reported to be worth about Rs. 6 lakh have been seized.
The arrests were made by personnel of the Video Piracy Cell of St. Thomas Mount, Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur and Villupuram districts. Following a tip-off, the policemen raided a house in Selaiyur near Tambaram on Tuesday and seized the equipment, besides arresting the accused Abdul and Mujib.
Cases under the Copyright Act have been slapped against the two youths, who are being held for piracy for the first time.
Police said the two obtained master CDs of latest Tamil and English films from Burma Bazaar, and with the help of CD writers that could copy seven CDs simultaneously rapidly, turned out pirated copies. On being given a bulk order, they bought blank CDs and downloaded the movies. The order came directly from pavement vendors with no mediators involved.
The youths sold the CDs to pavement vendors at about Rs. 7 for MP3 audio CDs and between Rs. 20 and Rs. 30 for movie CDs. Among more than 3,000 CDs recovered from their workplace, most were latest Tamil films. A majority of them were of the film ‘Sivaji’. The collection also included ‘Kreedam,’ ‘Arya’ and even some recently released English films.
They would purchase the stickers and wrappers from wholesale markets in Sivakasi, police said. One of the youths had studied till tenth standard, while the other had completed fifth standard.
The youths said poverty had driven them into this profession; they earned at least Rs. 300 every day.
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