A firm that manufactured a master disc which was used to produce more than 100,000 pirate copies has been ordered to pay $250,000 in damages to the recording industry. The mastering firm called Planet Optical Disc Ltd, was ordered to pay the damages after a court decided it was liable for the production of all the compact discs originating from the master copy. The case had been brought by record companies including Universal International Music, Interscope Records, Zomba Records, BMG Middle East, Sony Music Entertainment, WEA International and EMI Records, all of which will share the damages granted.

“Mastering firms must carefully check all material that they are mastering and ensure that their customer is properly licensed by the content owner” says Lauri Rechardt, Director of Litigation at IFPI, which represents the music industry worldwide.

“This judgement shows that mastering firms cannot just turn a blind eye and that their responsibility does not end when the stamper leaves the factory door. A CD mastering plant can be held liable for the damage caused by all the illegal copies made from that stamper. In many cases that could be hundreds of thousands of illegal copies, which would mean an even bigger damages bill than this one.”
This news article was first published on the IFPI website