KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Malaysia has stepped up raids on movie pirates, seizing almost 500 DVD burners so far this year, an industry group said Wednesday.
Malaysian officials confiscated 150 burners and tens of thousands of discs from a lab outside Kuala Lumpur last week, the U.S.-based Motion Picture Association said in a statement. It said a 32-year-old man was detained in the raid.
The seizure brings the number of DVD burners confiscated in three nationwide raids so far this year to 487, compared to 23 in the same period last year, the association said.
Mike Ellis, the association's Asia Pacific director, said Malaysia's "swift action at the beginning of this year has made it extremely difficult for the pirate syndicates."
The 150 burners seized last week could have churned out 8.1 million pirated discs a year, generating US$14.2 million (euro9.67 million) in revenue, the association said.
Association members, including Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Universal, lost about US$1.2 billion (euro820 million) in 2005 because of movie piracy.
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