The body governing the New Zealand recording industry has stopped the flow of thousands of illegal CDs after alerting Australian authorities to an organised gang distributing re-mixed compilation albums.
Pirated CDs circulating New Zealand and Pacific island nations sparked police raids in Sydney yesterday after The Recording IndustryAssociation of New Zealand (RIANZ) tipped off their Australian counterparts.
Thousands of illegal CDs were seized and a Sydney man was charged after raids carried out by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) on homes, businesses, retail outlets, and a manufacturing plant.
The AFP said an organised gang in Australia had been manufacturing tens of thousands of re-mixed compilation albums and distributing them throughout Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific, AAP reported.
RIANZ director of anti piracy Mark McCall told NZPA today the bust was the result of an ongoing operation.
"It's been great that we've been able to help them (the Australian authorities) and stop the trade of infringing product across the borders," he said.
Mr McCall said the operation was a good example of trans-Tasman co-operation.
"It does show how important the protection of intellectual property is," he said.
Mr McCall said RIANZ had found the illegal CDs but declined to be more specific, saying it could jeopardise future operations.
"[It was] good thorough investigation ... there's tell-tale things that we see and then we use our knowledge and knowledge of the industry to find out where they might be coming from."
Mr McCall said there was a "great deal" of money in music piracy.
"It's all profit except for the copying of the disks," he said.
It was not clear how many of the compilation CDs had been distributed in New Zealand but it was "some thousands," he said.
The pirate CDs featured artists such as Justin Timberlake, UB40 and Gnarls Barkley.
Penalties for copyright infringement of music were a fine of up to $150,000 or five years in jail.
