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Business News Legal
Scottish bootlegger jailed
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 17 February 2011
A CD and DVD bootlegger in Edinburgh has been jailed for sixteen months after admitting to making and selling illegal copies of albums and movies between 2007 and 2009. Police found 4000 fake CDs and DVDs worth £200,000 when they raided Paul McPhillips Edinburgh home. He had been selling the dodgy products online.
McPhillip’ lawyer stressed that this was her client’s first offence, that he had been struggling to support his seven children after losing his full time job, and the piracy venture had started as a small-time enterprise to make ends meet. She asked that her client be given community service rather than be jailed.
However, judge Frank Crowe of the Edinburgh Sheriff Court insisted that the scale McPhillips’ piracy operation had reached over those two years, even if such a scale was not originally intended, was sufficiently grand that “prison is the only option”.
The Minister For Intellectual Property, Judith Wilcox, welcomed the ruling, adding that the government remained committed to the principle of custodial sentences for those involved in criminal copyright infringement.