Huge fine for Italian illegal music distributor

13th February 2009

Italian Telecommunications Police have prosecuted a 40-year-old man for infringing copyright law, fining him €340,000. The man, who lives in the southern city of Isernia, had been selling CD-Rs and DVD-Rs containing copyright protected material that he had downloaded from file-sharing networks. During a raid on his home, police seized around 1,500 CD-Rs containing infringing music and hundreds of discs containing illegal software. The administrative fine was calculated on the basis of €103 for each infringing work he stole, as stipulated in Italian copyright law.

Jeremy Banks, head of IFPI’s Internet Anti-Piracy Unit, says: “This case shows that many police forces take mass copyright infringement very seriously. This kind of activity robs artists, composers and producers of the rewards for their work and damages future investment in new music.”