The ELSPA today announced that a factory producing illegally replicated games, film and music was shut down in the West Midlands. This followed a raid on Friday, December 5 where 30,000 illegally copied discs and DVD duplicators were seized from the premises in Brierley Hill by West Midlands Police officers and members of Sandwell Council's Trading Standards Department. Several suspects were arrested and later released on Police bail, pending further investigations.
"Piracy, like that of any other entertainment industry, costs us dear," said John Hillier heading of ELSPA's crime unit. "Making good and inventive games is an expensive and creative process, with some titles today costing 20 million pounds or more to develop. To make a quality title involves teams of highly skilled professionals - from programmers and graphic artists to voice actors and musicians. When a pirate sells illegally copied games they undermine the viability, value and creativity of our industry. The worst-case scenario is that pirate activity could cost the jobs of some of the UK's outstanding creative talent and that would be a catastrophe.
"The public should be aware of many other pitfalls of counterfeit games - some will even damage hardware such as consoles including PlayStation, Xbox and Wii," continued Hillier. "Other fakes will not play correctly at all. Most importantly, of course, pirated software comes with no quality assurance whatsoever - so if a game turns out to be faulty then retailers and publishers just will not replace them."
"The high value of the counterfeit products seized in this raid should leave no one in any doubt that organised criminals are using films and TV programmes to fund their criminal lifestyles," said Kieron Sharp, Director General of FACT. "The scale of such illegal operations and the profits they are making require planning and resource and FACT is working with law enforcement across the U.K. to target those behind such activities."
