Facing the music

Monday, November 14, 2005

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Some CDs looked more legitimate than others.

Thousands of counterfeit CDs were seized and three arrests were made at a Pinellas Park flea market on Saturday.

The bust was part of an ongoing effort to stop piracy in the music industry.

Deputies were tipped off by the Recording Industry Association of America that vendors were selling counterfeit CDs at the Wagon Wheel Flea Market.

"You can go anywhere from this quality all the way to this one where they actually put it in a full-size case," said Sgt. Tim Goodman with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. "They print their label. They put front and back [labels] on these and they seal them in plastic to make them look like they came from a retail outlet."

The music on the 5,859 CDs seized ranged from from Latin to hip hop.

"These are selling for $5 a piece or let's say five for $20 in the flea market," said Goodman. "Those CDs would normally sell in [the] retail market for anywhere from $13-$16."

Three vendors were arrested at the flea market on third-degree felony charges of unauthorized copy of a compact disk: 40-year-old Tommy Lyons of Tampa, 53-year-old Kenneth Long of Oldsmar and 40-year old Dean Cooper of St. Petersburg.

Selling counterfeit CDs at flea markets is nothing new, according to Brad Buckles, the Recording Industry Association of America's executive vice president of anti-piracy.

"Quite often the people who are selling this stuff at a flea market are purchasing it from fairly large and sophisticated operations that produce pirated products in the tens and one hundreds of thousands of units at a time," said Buckles.

Apparently, it's not just people copying music off the Internet that's causing the music industry to lose millions.

"We think the pirate music market out there is probably in excess of $300 million a year," said Buckles. "Now that's not just how much we lose. That's how much is being spent on pirate music around the country and [I] that's again a conservative estimate."

Click here for an enlarged image.

Deputies say to expect more piracy busts in the near future.

"I'm sure you'll see vendors out because the holidays are coming," said Goodman. "This is their big time of year to sell this type of stuff. So, yes, you'll probably see us out more working cases like this in the flea markets."

The owner of the Wagon Wheel Flea Market declined to comment for this story.