"Millions of holidaymakers going to Greece this summer have been warned they could be jailed for buying pirated CDs after a buyer was imprisoned.
A man was jailed for three months by an Athens court for buying illegal CDs in the country's first case of its kind.

He had been arrested as he bought two CDs from a vendor in Athens last week, said the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI).

The group gave a clear warning it would target buyers of counterfeit CDs.

IFPI spokesman Ion Stamboulis said: "This is not a symbolic measure. We are determined to prosecute the buyers and we have the support of the authorities."

Greece has the worst piracy rate in western Europe.

CD piracy costs the Greek economy dearly .
About 10 million pirated CDs are sold in Greece each year - the same number of sales as those of genuine CDs - at an average cost of six euros (£4) each.

Travellers from the UK are among the customers for counterfeit CDs sold openly on the streets, outside cafes or on beaches.

The Greek authorities appear to be acting to stave off the threat of an increase in piracy anticipated during this summer's Olympics in Athens.

About 1,000 vendors have been prosecuted during the past few years, but this is the first time a buyer has been jailed.

"Until now, we were focusing on the sellers, but Greek courts generally hand them light suspended sentences and they resume their trade as soon as they are released," said Mr Stamboulis. "

PLEASE READ THE SOURCE ARTICLE AT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3731861.stm

-------------------------editorial comment-------------------------------
This is sad for many reasons. One is the use of the word "pirated" has apparently become tireless Big Lie ( Grosse Lüge ) tactics of ALL these organizations like the RIAA, IFPI, and the rest.

It's also sad to me that resources of law enforcement are being WASTED on this nonsense.

Does this mean that Greece doesn't have any murders, robberies (actually if they have piracy, by definition they have those), or even rapes going on?


Mr. Stamboulis first name is Greek... The word "ion" is from Greek ion, present participle of ienai "go", thus "a goer".

In Greek mythology, Ion was a son of Xuthus and Creusa. He founded the Ionian race and became a king of Athens. Man, in my opinion, what a disgraceful use of this once proud name!

Globalism and WIPO, will make this kind of thing more prevalent and more egregious with time.

"Millions of holidaymakers going to Greece this summer have been warned..."
Who is putting out the warnings for unsuspecting travelers? Travel agents?
Governments?
The only news that I've heard recently about Greece concerns construction. They're running a tad behind schedule.

"Freedom dies when tyranny flourishes..."
~CodeWarrior 2004

"A man was jailed for three months"...
THREE MONTHS for buying 2 counterfeit CD's sold openly on the street in full view. Unbelievable!

yeah and the sellers (the ones making the money off the cd's) get light sentences. sounds like the industry has it's prioritys wrong

How the hell is a customer supposed to be responsible from even knowing if something is counterfit or not? This isn't good.

Not surprising coming from a country that made video games illegal.

Wow, thats great. Punish the people that buy cds. I'm sure this person had no idea they were pirated.

When I first read this last night from anotehr site, I thought

FUCKEN INCREDIABLE!!!!!!!!!!!! All this talk about how the RIAA can't sue pure downloaders (only download and not share/upload) because they can't offer you something and then sue you for taking, and they can't prove that you knew what your downloading is copyrighted and illegally being distributed or not because you never know what the actual file is you getit's done downloading??? And yet this SHOCKINg SHIT happens!!!!!???? Freedom sure as HELL does die when tyranny flourishes!!! We must yake a stand to prevent more of this shit from happening!!! This article would mean hardly anything regarding tyranny if just the sellers of the fake/counterfeit CDs got in trouble!!! There is a tremendous difference between selling them and buying them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If the FASCIST ASSHOLES in the RIAA/IFPI/WIPO or anyone else affiliated with them tried to target buyers of fake CDs and succeeded, I just don't see anyway they wouldn't try the same thing with people who obtain CDs for free or download music for free!!!!! Just FUCKEN scary and FASCIST like especially since this was from a country where copyright infringement (what those ASSHOLES so call piracy) was so rampant that there was mass illegal ccounterfeiting and selling and getting away with it, and yet in just days worth of time, this country goes to the worst possible extreme of targetting not only someone who didn't make money of this, but someone who only obtained a couple of copyright infringed CDs (what those ASSHOLES in the RIAA/IFPI/WIPO arrogant and draconianly so call pirated CDs) and even spent some of their money on it!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just a draconian world we live in if this kind of EVIL shit continues to happen on behalf of those CORPORATE MEDIA THUGS!!!!!!!

Very important article found CodeWarrior!!! I found a few other important articles that I copied and pasted the links to in another article, but they don't work when I submitted my post. It included this one before this one was submitted here.

If the recording industry would trim the costs of recording music for albums and sell them at $5 to $7 each, they could put these counterfeiters out of business. I bet they'd even take a huge chunk of the used CD market.

This would be a difficult task. They would have to eliminate absurd fees and costs all the way down the line, but they have the clout to do it and it would probably turn there whole business around and make them more profitable in the long run. Heck there would probably even be more total royalties for the artists, too.

Oh, wait a minute...what am I thinking. The recording industry is a group of even bigger crooks than the counterfeiters. My bad.

Sorry for the distraction folks...go on about your business.

The International Federation of Phonographic Injustice has sunk to a new low.

hey, it's a sad news, but, on the other hand ...
... this, and other criminal prosecutions of the people who are 'undesirable' for the RIAA/MPAA/IFPI may spark the thing I dream of: THE WORLDWIDE BOYCOTT OF THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY. After all, there is a difference between usurping few thousand bucks from a 12yr old teenager and putting a person in a dirty cell for the same 'deed'. Everybody will start to HATE the music industry, and thus, our mission to convince them to STOP BUYING CDs will be as easy as it has never been.

In Liberty,
Critto