Nine Arrested for "Pirated" Music
Three Costa Rican and six Nicaraguans were arrested last Friday for "pirating" music. The arrests were made by police in Central market in Heredia.

Confiscated were more than 3.000 CD's that were copied from original and sold over the counter openly.

The Ministerio de Seguridad Pública created some time back a special unit against "piratería", the Dirección de Investigaciones Especializadas (DIE), to curb the illegal copying and sale of music, videos and other copyrighted works.

In San José a pirated DVD movie can run about ¢3.000 colones (some us$6.30) while an original copy can cost as must as ¢20.000 colones (us$42.65). Counterfeiters make a duplicate of the original, including a colour photocopy of the original DVD or CD cover.

The police operation is to reinforce recent legislation that covers counterfeiting or intellectual property and author's rights. CAPROFONO (Cámara de Productores Fonográficos de Costa Rica) is the organization that has made numerous complaints to the Ministerio de Seguridad Pública.

Authorities are asking the public to denounce those who sell pirated material and to call 281 1833 or 281 1835 before purchasing pirated material, otherwise they would be accomplices to organized criminals and run the risk of damaging their stereo and DVD players with inferior quality disks.