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[FYI] (Fwd) FC: Police raid video stores in Sweden for selling -- im




------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Fri, 29 Jun 2001 10:42:40 -0400
To:             	politech@politechbot.com
From:           	Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject:        	FC: Police raid video stores in Sweden for selling -- imported DVDs
Send reply to:  	declan@well.com

[Perhaps next we'll see European police holding public bonfires of
Region 1 DVDs? At least it'll be a good photo opportunity. --Declan]

---

To: declan@well.com
From: Macki <macki@2600.com>
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 14:26:13 -0700

I suppose it was inevitable... Eventually they'll be locking people up
for giving away the endings to movies too (depriving the studios of
value and whatnot).

http://www.2600.com/news/display.shtml?id=541

VIDEO STORE RAIDED FOR SELLING IMPORTED DVD'S
Posted 28 Jun 2001 08:58:56 UTC
A front page article in the Swedish daily Metro (Skane edition) has a
very interesting article about a raid which took place at video stores
in Gothenburg and Stockholm. Apparently, the only reason this raid
took place was because the store was selling Region 1 DVD's - in other
words, imported DVD's. No, this is not a dream.

As you may know, the MPAA, among other entities, has helped to create
artificial barriers that prevent DVD's from being played in different
parts of the world. It's called "region coding." This is what programs
like DeCSS manage to defeat and it's one of the real reasons the MPAA
went ballistic over its release. Being able to force people to buy
DVD's on whatever terms the industry decrees makes it a lot easier to
really rake in the dough and control distribution in ways that were
previously unimaginable. And now they apparently intend to get tough
on anyone who tries to bypass this barrier - even if there was
absolutely no piracy or illegal activity involved!

Here is a translation of the article, courtesy of a 2600 reader in
Sweden. Note how it's now being said that it's actually ILLEGAL to
sell DVD's from a different region. It's also rather humorous how the
value of the DVD's is stated as if this were some kind of a drug or
weapon bust. And it's rather chilling to find out that apparently this
is not the first time such a thing has happened.

Metro, Wednesday 27 June 2001
by Joakim Goksor


"Hundreds of illegal DVD's seized by Swedish Police"

Gothenburg - Hundreds of illegal DVD's were seized when the Police's
enforcement officer carried out a civil search on the "TV-Spelborsen"
store located in the Femman building yesterday.

The films are all so-called "Region 1" DVD's, reserved for the
American market and therefore forbidden for retail sale in Europe.

The raid was part of a coordinated action against the retail-chain's
location in central Stockholm, where a similar raid netted several
hundred DVD films.

In all, around 500 DVD's were seized, with an extimated market value
of approximately 150,000 Swedish Kronor, or US$15,000.

In a previous Swedish case with approximately the same number of
seized DVD's, a retailer was sentenced to a fine of approximately
500,000 Swedish Kronor -- US$50,000. 




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