Piracy plunders industry
2003-01-08 22:02
Johannesburg - Copyright holders of foreign DVDs and PC games are threatening to withdraw their products from the country if the distribution of pirate copies is not stopped.
A Pretoria lawyers' firm representing SterKinekor, NuMetro and Sony, said on Wednesday it had filed High Court applications to stem these illegal operations.
This follows threats by some copyright holders in the film industry to declare South Africa an "all piracy state" as their films are not earning enough money here.
Corné Gülden-Pfennig of the firm Spoor & Fisher in Pretoria, says Russia has already acquired piracy status.
"There everything is faked. Legal copies are no longer able to compete with the pirated versions, and have been withdrawn. We are trying to prevent this from happening here and are co-operating with the police and state departments to address the problem."
The Pretoria High Court has granted five interdicts so far this week against illegal distributors in Gauteng, ordering them to disclose their pirating sources.
Juan Venter, André van der Kolf and Jason Anthony Smith together with Plastic DVDs and Game World have been prohibited from illegally competing with NuMetro Home Entertainment and Ster Kinekor Home Entertainment.
They are prohibited from trading in pirated DVD copies under fake Universal, TriStar, Columbia, Dreamworks, Hollywood, Disney, Walt Disney, 20th Century Fox, MetroGoldwyn Mayer, MGM, Paramount, WB or Warner Bros labels.
Venter, Van der Kolf, Plastic DVDs and Game World may also not compete with Sony by trading fake Playstation games.
The cases have been postponed for deliberation over damages settlements.
Gülden-Pfennig says claims in these cases normally range between R150&nsbr;000 and R1.5 million.
Meanwhile, Syed Muhammed Idrees was given a fine of R27&nbps;000 or a 12 months suspended prison sentence in the Kempton Park Magistrates Court on Wednesday.
He was caught with 580 DVDs in his suitcase at Johannesburg International Airport.