Archive notice: This article was originally published on October 15, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
After employees of the Society for the Prosecution of Copyright Infringements e.V. (GVU) had acquired evidence of pirated films by means of test purchases, the officers opened every stand. They confiscated sackfuls of pirated films as well as counterfeit branded articles and filled a 30-tonne truck with them. The operation lasted from the early morning until late in the evening. No arrests were made.
Among the films seized on Sunday were current titles such as “Ratatouille”, “Kings of the Waves”, “The Bourne Ultimatum” and “Resident Evil: Extinction”. With this range, the predominantly Vietnamese traders target German customers almost exclusively. Because of the continuous offering, there is equally steady shopping tourism to the more than 50 Czech border markets in total. The numerous market visitors are prepared to pay up to 3 euros even for poor-quality pirated copies. The purchasing power spent on this is lost to the legal market.
A study by Bauhaus University Weimar and the University of Hamburg, now published in excerpts, confirms significant losses for the German film industry due to illegal copies on the Internet and on data carriers. Without pirated copies, cinemas could increase their visitor share by 12.6 percent; revenues from legal DVD rental would be around one tenth higher without the illegal competition and those from DVD sales even 14.7 percent higher, according to the results of the study.
The offerings on the Czech border markets form a not insignificant share of the entire illegal market. Organized gangs almost without exception use the illegal film copies available on the Internet as source material. For these reasons, the GVU, together with Czech authorities, has been taking regular targeted action against this shadow economy for more than a year. Christian Sommer, chairman of the board of the GVU, on this: “Alongside such very successful operations, it is urgently necessary that these illegal markets at the border are also addressed and combated politically. Cooperation with the Czech authorities has improved, but still has considerable room for expansion.”
