20 individuals sentenced to jail time for selling pirate CDs on eBay

ROME, Italy (Top40 Charts/ IFPI) - 20 people have been sentenced to jail terms of up to eight months each after a trial in Udine for copyright infringement.

The case, which involved the sale of pirate music compilations on eBay, followed a raid carried out by the local Fiscal Police (GdF) acting on a warrant issued by the public prosecutor in 2007.
The GdF, assisted by the Italian industry's anti-piracy organisation FPM, had collected evidence of the massive distribution of infringing CD-ROMs which contained mp3 files downloaded from file-sharing networks.
The operation led to the seizure of more than 600,000 music tracks, personal computers and CD burners.

In addition to the criminal sentences issued the infringers are also still facing huge administrative sanctions of about �10 million.