A Roodepoort man, Marcus Mocke, has been sentenced in the Johannesburg Commercial Crimes Court to eight years in jail or a fine of R400 000 for dealing in pirated DVDs, the South African Federation against Copyright (Safact) said in a statement on Tuesday.
Safact said it is the harshest sentence to date received for DVD piracy.
Mocke was convicted on Monday.
“This follows a raid in March by the Johannesburg commercial crime task force in which 400 pirated DVDs and PlayStation games were seized from Mocke. The court heard that Mocke was both distributing and trading pirated goods in flea markets, stores and on the street,” Safact said.
The head of the commercial crimes court, advocate Andrew Chauke, said his team had been working on the case for six months, adding that they will be looking for more sentences like this.
Safact MD Fred Potgieter said Mocke had been under investigation for several years.
“This is evidence of a new spirit of cooperation between the legal authorities and the South African film and computer-game industries. We are determined to fight piracy at every level,” he added.
The organisation has warned that at least half of all DVDs sold locally are illegal, pirated copies. More than 500 000 fake DVDs were removed from the country’s streets in 2004 alone.
Safact is currently running a R10-million marketing campaign against piracy. — I-Net Bridge