DrJ used our newssubmit to tell us about an article in a dutch newspaper. He has translated it (many thanks for that!!) to english so everyone in the world can read how good we Dutch are in burning
The Dutch public spent 183,5 million guilders on pirated CD's. The "home-piracy" earned roughly 125 million and the 'organised crime' "only" 58,5 million. This caused the government to miss 30 million in taxes. |
These figures were released yesterday by the anti-piracy organisation Brein. As many of you know, Brein has been founded 3 years ago by the entertainment industry in The Netherlands. They work very closely together with (our good friends) Buma/Stemra. In 1999 Brein said that the piracy industry in The Netherlands made 145 million profit. The government lost 25 million in tax-income because of this. This means that piracy increaed by 26% last year.
In the year 2000, there were 50 million CDR's and CDROM's sold. Roughly 12 million were used for "home-piracy". As you all know, you're allowed to make 1 backup for personal use. But selling you own burned CD's is against the law. T. Kuik of Brein said: "Most people burn a CD for their own use, but an increasing group of people is burning day in day out. If you invest 15,000 guilders in good equipment then you're likely to make at least 100,000 guilders in profit." A lot of home-pirates sell their warez on the Internet. Brein closes a number of sites every month. The webmasters receive a warning and if that doesn't help Brein will goto court. Which could result in jail sentences and losing all the equipment you have bought.
The reason why 'organised crime' lost about 16.5 million in regards to 1999 is because most people burned the silver-warez CD's at home and sold them cheaper to their own friends.
Source: Brabantsdagblad
