CD Pirate Found Guilty on 15 Charges
12 November 2012
Yong Hong Lin, an Australian man charged with importing and selling thousands of illegal CDs and DVDs, has been convicted on 15 counts of copyright offenses. The Sydney District Court convicted him on May 21 following a three-week jury trial.
The charges were the first copyright matters to be heard before a jury in Australia.
Police raided Lin’s music and movie store in February in northwest Sydney, where they found more than 16,000 pirated discs imported from China. Illegal copies of albums by Elvis Presley, the Bee Gees, Abba, Jamiroquai and Luciano Pavarotti were seized, according to a report in Billboard magazine.
Lin, who had been charged with 31 offenses, will be sentenced on August 21. He faces up to A$60,500 (US$47,500) in fines and five years in prison per offense.
