Music industry Trade bodies the British Photographic Industry (BPI) and Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) have brought a successful and unprecedented prosecution to Gateshead based company AAA.
AAA were involved in the illegal manufacture of audio and video jukeboxes, supplying thousands of machines to companies in the entertainment industry despite not paying any of the required licensing fees.
The company, set up in 2001 in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear claimed on their website and in corporate literature to be fully licensed, even using PPL and BPI trademarks in transactions. In May 2008, Gateshead Trading Standards executed a warrant on behalf of PPL and the BPI to raid the AAA offices, a move that revealed evidence, which exposed hundreds of thousands of pounds in copyright infringement. The company had illegally downloaded and supplied over 100,000 audio and video tracks.
The three owners of AAA, Malcolm Wylie, Peter Wylie and William Ross were charged with offences under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 and were found guilty during hearings this month. They will be sentenced at Newcastle Crown Court on 1 July 2010.
In a statement, Richard Stewart spoke on behalf of the PPL, saying: “This is the first joint PPL/BPI prosecution and I am very pleased to see it come to a successful collusion with the conviction of all three defendants”.
Continuing, Stewart said that those involved in the company were clearly: “Defrauding not only our members of many hundreds of thousands of pounds of revenue but also deceiving scores of companies across the UK including hundreds of licensees who in good faith paid substantial sums to the fraudsters for what they were led to believe was a fully licensed system.”
The PPL is a music licensing company, responsible for ensuring that sound recordings and music videos broadcast in a public context are correctly licensed. The BPI is an influential trade organisation representing the interests of the entire recorded music industry.
The case represents a landmark in the resolution of record industry licensing disputes in the UK.
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