Bootleg DVDs bring big fine

A former Jackson Square store owner has been hit with a $30,000 fine for selling bootleg DVDs for six months after being warned by the RCMP.

Jiawen Zhou, 25, of Toronto, pleaded guilty in January to six counts of breaching the Copyright Act, admitting to selling more than 12,000 counterfeit DVDs for $5 apiece at his small shop in the spring of 2007.

Ontario Court Justice John Takach said Friday the hefty fine was warranted because Zhou persisted in selling the pirated DVDs even after he was apprehended several times, starting with a raid on April 6, 2007, by RCMP accompanied by a private investigator with The Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association.

On that date, Zhou was served with a civil order by the film distributors' association to "cease and desist" the illegal sales. Zhou voluntarily handed over 1,900 burned DVDs that he had in inventory.

Twelve days later, mall security alerted Hamilton police that Zhou was continuing to sell illegal copies of movies. Police arrested Zhou and seized 168 more DVDS, along with a notebook in which the storekeeper had recorded $62,000 in sales of bootleg movies between April and mid-June 2007.