News: 500 000 pirate DVDs destroyed in South Africa

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) announced today that it oversaw the destruction of roughly 500 000 pirated DVDs with an estimated value of R27 million at a plastic and metal recycling plant in Johannesburg this week.

The fake DVDs were reportedly seized during operations which took place throughout the year at flee markets, burner labs and other DVD hotspots across the country.

Some of the most popular titles which were seized included locally produced film White Wedding, District 9, Bruno, New Moon, This is It and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

According to SARS “the collaborative operations were aimed at disrupting the supply chain in the illicit economy, while also identifying suspected syndicate kingpins with a view to investigate and enforce tax compliance”.

Piracy of intellectual material has become a major hindrance to film studios and record labels globally since internet usage gathered worldwide application in the 20th century.

Locally speaking the recent announcement of affordable uncapped packaged from South African internet service providers such as MWEB and Afrihost has arguably encouraged users to download more content via torrent portals such as The Pirate Bay.

This has prompted the vast majority of local ISPs to apply ‘fair usage policies’ to these packages which restrict heavy users to download caps.

500 000 pirate DVDs destroyed in South Africa

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