DURING the Cold War the West spent billions of dollars trying to spy on the military installations of the Soviet Union. Now Western governments are targeting secret Russian military facilities in a new conflict, this time over the piracy of music, films and software.

The Russian Interior Ministry has revealed that millions of pirated DVDs, CDs and CD-ROMs are being produced at factories on secret military facilities beyond the jurisdiction of the police. The ministry said: “Some of the counterfeit production is being made in commercial structures installed in secret and top-secret facilities.”

Western companies have lobbied the Kremlin for years to shut down the factories that have made Russia, with China and Indonesia, one of the biggest producers of pirated DVDs, CDs and CD-Roms. President Putin has come under pressure this year because the inclusion of Russia on a US piracy watchlist is a key obstacle to its hopes of joining the World Trade Organisation.

Russian police have had little success in clamping down on the factories, which can churn out an estimated 250 million discs a year, of which 90 per cent are pirated. In a kiosk less than 500 metres from the Moscow office of The Times, Anatoly offered a pirate DVD copy of the Adam Sandler comedy The Longest Yard — released in Britain on September 9 — for only 150 roubles (£3). “Tomorrow I’ll have Revolver,” he said, even though Guy Ritchie’s latest film had its premiere in London only this week.

Industry experts say that of the 42 factories known to be producing bootleg films, music and software at least 12 are on restricted government or military sites, many in or around Moscow. Konstantin Zem-chinkov, the director of the Russian Anti-Piracy Organisation (RAPO), said: “They want to make it difficult for police to come in and raid them. The military knows about it and the Government knows about it.”

The problem, he said, was that much of Russia’s vast military industrial complex was moribund and desperate for cash. “They have to have some money but the Government can’t supply it.”

It is hard to estimate the value of Russia’s pirate disc business, but with production costs of six roubles a disc it is undoubtedly huge. American businesses lost more that

$1.7 billion (£940 million) last year to copyright piracy in Russia, and more than $6 billion in the past five years, according to US officials. Shutting down such a lucrative business, therefore, has its risks. Last year Russian police working with the RAPO shut down Europe’s largest counterfeiting operation in a rented building on a military base in the city of Pushkino, near Moscow. The factory, which had been running for two years, housed equipment worth an estimated £7 million including an ultramodern production line capable of producing 650,000 discs a month.

The pirates have threatened to retaliate against the RAPO and even tried to recover the confiscated machinery by using their connections in the Government. In June an anti- piracy activist in the far eastern region of Primorye was attacked by four men with baseball bats and rubber batons a day after he helped police to raid a pirate disc factory.

Even if the pirates are caught, they are rarely punished. Since the start of the year only 11 of 446 people found guilty of pirating offences have been given prison sentences, with the others receiving suspended sentences or having to pay fines.

OUT ON DISC

Films on offer for 150 roubles

The Longest Yard Out now
The Wedding Crashers December 28
Cinderella Man January 2006
Room 36 No planned release
The Island November 25
The 40- year-old Virgin 2006
Red Eye No planned release date
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory November 21
The Dukes of Hazzard November 25
Pride and Prejudice 2006

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