2 feb, 2012 – Following on December’s raid on a shop selling set-top boxes that allowed access to pirated content streams on the Internet, police in the Sydney suburb of Ashfield raided a second shop yesterday, and arrested the owner. Like the first shop (in Hurstville, NSW) the shop in Ashfield was acting as the arm of an international piracy syndicate, selling boxes that gave access to illegal feeds from China of regional pay-TV channels. Police acted on a complaint from TVB Australia, whose Chinese-language programming was prominent among the 1000 TV channels being pirated. Police told the media that the owner of the shop was facing charges that could lead to a fine of AUD 60,000 or up to a 5-year jail sentence. The local police chief said the shop’s operations were “essentially theft” and pirates operating in Australia will eventually get caught.
The interview with the police chief:
An article from the local press can be viewed here: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/sydney-pirate-pay-tv-outfit-offering-1000-channels-for-50-a-month-raided-police-20120202-1qu35.html