CD pirate made up to £6m, court told


A prolific fraudster made up to £6m selling pirated music CDs, a court heard yesterday.
During a 10-year global operation, thousands of illicit recordings of artists including Oasis, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones passed through the hands of Mark Purseglove, Blackfriars crown court in London was told.

Purseglove, 33, of Chelsea, west London, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to one count of conspiracy with others to defraud persons in the music industry.

David Groome, prosecuting, said Purseglove had grossed between £4m and £6m between December 1991 and June 2002. "He commissioned, manufactured and sold, here and elsewhere, unavailable or illicit recordings of musical works performed by virtually every well-known artist in the world," Mr Groome said.

Members of the audience at concerts made illegal recordings which were used as master copies for the CDs. TV and radio performances were also illicitly taped, and tracks from existing records were duplicated, the court heard.

Sound engineers at gigs were paid to make unauthorised recordings used for Purseglove's business.

With a network of contacts around the world, Purseglove's business organisations, which traded under various names, sold the pirated CDs at music festivals, in shops, and online, mostly for £12 to £15 each, although one sold for £130 on internet auction site eBay.

More than 28,000 illicit CDs with an estimated retail value of £500,000 were seized when police searched three premises in June 2002.

Purseglove had been jailed and fined for similar offences in Florida in 1997, and was taken to court in 1992 by Bill Wyman and Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones to stop him making illicit recordings.

The hearing continues today. Purseglove is expected to be sentenced this week.

The Guardian