Movestoscupper thevideopirates

February 1986

Investigators working on behalf of the Irish Videogram Association are expected to make a raid on Wexford in the next few weeks, in a bid to root out video pirates who sell bootleg tapes.

INFACT (the Irish National Federation Against Copyright Theft) has already closed down one operator in the town, and fined another £5,000 for royalty losses.

The man who was fined that £5,000 is now also anxious to inform people of the pitfalls of buying and using illegal pirated copies of films.

[NAME WITHELD] said that at the time his premises was inspected, he didn’t know a copy from an original. He had bought his stock of videotapes from a number of different suppliers, and all had seemed trustworthy to him.

He says however that now that he knows more about the issue, he has come to realise that piracy is rife in Wexford, with bootleg tapes being offered in several shops and also in mobile video library vans that travel around the county.

‘INFACT know about it too and they’re doing something about it and that’s good,’ he said. ‘It’s equivalent to handling stolen goods, and that’s the way it’s seen.’

He said he is suffering ‘ endless hassle’ from the effects of piracy. While some people might not unduly care about the legality or otherwise of tapes of films they want to see, particularly new-release blockbusters, he said that bad tapes can damage the video head players in people’s video machines.

‘I get customers coming to me about how the tapes I used to have must damaged their machines, and how they can’t get them fixed under guarantee,’ he said.

He hoped that the Revenue Commissioners will now also clamp down on others who continue to hawk pirated tapes.