A trader who sold thousands of pounds worth of computer games on copied CDs for just £5 at a Wolverhampton market has been jailed for eight months.
Christopher Jones, aged 40, had thousands of discs for sale, many of which contained illegal software and titles by entertainment giants such as Nintendo, Microsoft and Sega.
On one CD, trading standards officers found 400 games for Sony’s PlayStation Portable games.
Wolverhampton Magistrates Court heard yesterday that the titles would have cost £16,000 to buy separately but Jones was selling the whole package for £5.
Jones, who admitted 21 charges relating to copyright breaches, launched an immediate appeal against his sentence.Mr Richard Dewsbury, for trading standards, said an officer visited the Northern Computer Market, held at Wolverhampton’s Dunstall Racecourse, in February.
The officer bought three titles from Jones, who was trading as Chris’s Computers. He found Jones used recordable CDs and a laptop computer to copy discs.
Police and trading standards confiscated around 3,500 discs in April.
Jones, of Doncaster, told police he got the discs from a source in Manchester for £10 and made copies.
Officers revisited his stall in August and again in October and were able to buy more illegal discs.
By Crime Correspondent Mike Woods
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