A 40-year-old man who was arrested after pirate CDs and DVDs worth millions of rands were found at his Cyrildene house will appear in the Johannesburg Commercial Crime Court on Thursday, police said.
Captain Cheryl Engelbrecht said the man was arrested a street away from his house.
She told the Mail & Guardian Online that “boxes full” of pirated goods, estimated to be worth about R4-million, were found on the property. The man, a Chinese national, is being charged with contravening the Copyright Act, she said.
The man was well known to the police and was already out on bail of R50 000 in connection with the manufacture of pirate DVDs and CDs in Mayfair in Johannesburg last year, said Engelbrecht.
She said police would oppose bail, as they had done after his initial arrest last year. “But it doesn’t lie in our hands. We do what we must, and then the courts have to decide.”
The man “tried to run away after he saw that police had seen him, but was apprehended by one of our police officers. He is still in our custody,” she said.
Asked if more arrests were expected, Engelbrecht said the outcome of the investigation would determine this.
Since the case was in court on Thursday, she declined to comment on whether others had been taken in for questioning.
Describing the house, Engelbrecht said there was a hidden trapdoor in the bathroom leading to the ceiling where the equipment used to make the CDs and DVDs was hidden. Police found four computers and several hard drives used in the manufacturing of the recordings. The Star newspaper reported that one of the hard drives could copy up to eight CDs or DVDs simultaneously.
Police later discovered that a built-in wardrobe in a bedroom concealed another trapdoor leading to an underground bunker, equipped with air vents, a toilet and a machine used to process the pirated recordings.
They also discovered two outbuildings used to store CD and DVD covers, ink for printing the covers and thousands of blank cassette tapes. Engelbrecht said the collection of pirated goods included international and local DVDs, CDs and cassettes.
The raid was a joint effort by the South African Police Service, Johannesburg metro police, the Department of Trade and Industry and several musicians from the anti-piracy group Operation Dudula.
The musicians included poet Mzwakhe Mbuli, Afro-pop king Ringo Madlingozi and gospel singer Deborah Frasier.
The Creative Workers’ Union confirmed that artists whose music had been pirated included Madlingozi, Mbuli, Stimela, Rebecca Malope, the late Brenda Fassie and Bheki Khabela.
Speaking to the Star, Madlingozi said piracy is not only stealing from him but from his family, children and the entire music industry.
“This has to stop. How long will this go on for? People always say we musicians die like paupers when, in actual fact, it is through people like this that we are suffering. These people are making a 100% profit of my sweat and hard work,” said Madlingozi.
When asked whether curbing piracy is a priority for the police, Engelbrecht told the M&G Online: “Our priority is focusing on crime, and this is a part of crime.”