He plead guilty to five counts of possessing pirated DVDs and one count of possessing an obscene DVD, which reportedly contained bestiality. He also had DVD duplicating equipment in his home.
He had been charged with a similar offense last year and had been given a 12-month discharge — which he breached with this offense.
He's defense attorney said He began selling pirated DVDs again to support himself, and Stephen Grey, operational manager of Cardiff Trading Standards said this is a common problem with Chinese immigrants in the area.
“This is becoming more and more of a problem for us," Grey said. "The proportions of it in Cardiff are of concern to everyone. The scale of Yi He’s operation leads us to believe we were homing in on the producers, not the people they put on the streets to sell this stuff.”
Grey appeared to be more concerned about the obscenity issue rather than the copyright infringement, stating that many of the pornographic DVDs are sold in front of or near schools, and there is no effort to regulate who purchases the counterfeit adult DVDs.
In July, a Chinese man named Ming Hu was sentenced in the U.K. to a two-month prison term after pleading guilty to charges of selling pirated porn and mainstream videos.
The man faced two charges under the 1984 Video Recordings Act and the 1994 Trademarks Act for selling illegally reproduced DVDs, as well as 86 adult DVDs which can only be sold through a licensed sex retailer.
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