Louisiana man sentenced to one year for piracy
A Louisiana man has been sentenced to one year in prison by a federal judge today for pirating thousands of DVDs and CDs in his basement.
Although the case was pretty cut and dry, there was something more notable to be taken from the case, that of the MPAA's valuation of the pirated discs, which has slowly fallen from $3200 per disc in 2006, to a current $14 per disc.
In the case of Tanner Hills, the MPAA concluded that the 2,896 counterfeited discs seized from his apartment were worth the equivalent of $39,791, for an average of about $13.47 USD for every CD or DVD.
Although you may be saying to yourself, "WOW that's a large number for old CDs or DVDs!", the value of pirated movies has actually fallen substantially since 2006 when the MPAA seized 6,200 pirated discs in Hong Kong and valued them at $20 million USD, for the astounding value of $3,225.80 each. Last year the MPAA seized 200,000 DVDs in an Australian sting and valued it at $16.6 million, meaning each movie was worth $83 USD.
With values falling from "MPAA experts", how can the group continue to claim that the industry loses "$18 billion annually as a result of movie theft"?
