The Guardian

London, February 23:

Bollywood film distributors claimed a big scalp in their battle against bootleg DVDs yesterday but said the problem was approaching epidemic levels as millions of counterfeit films flooded into Britain from Asia.

Jayanti Amarishi Buhecha was jailed for three years yesterday after being found guilty of two offences under the Trade Marks Act-1994 at Harrow crown court, north-west London, last month.

The British Phonographic Industry, the trade body which compiled much of the evidence that resulted in Buhecha being charged, welcomed the sentence as a sign the courts were taking DVD and CD piracy seriously. But independent Bollywood record labels and film distributors in the UK said increased piracy was threatening to put them out of business.

Some fear the problem is now so endemic that consumers no longer differentiate between pirated DVDs and originals.

Although the threat to Hollywood studios and the effect of illegal downloading of music has received more attention, the BPI said piracy was a bigger problem for Bollywood distributors. It estimated that at least four out of 10 Bollywood DVDs and CDs sold in the UK were counterfeit, well above the average for Hollywood movies and western CDs. Others in the industry put the figure at more than seven in 10.

Buhecha began as a legitimate distributor arranging film screenings in Cambridge and went on to become an authorised distributor for Yash Raj Films, an Asian film company.

In 2002 he was suspended by the company when it discovered he had been selling pirated copies of Mohabbatein. The firm sued him and Buhecha agreed to pay 16,000 pounds and stop copying. But according to evidence produced in court, the lure of the easy money from pirated movies was too great and he was soon making an estimated 26,000 pounds a month by importing thousands of films.

On one occasion Brent and Harrow trading standards officers found more than 1,000 counterfeit DVDs in the boot of his Ford Escort.