Seizures and discoveries last week include Spanish police arresting four people and impounding over 500,000 items of fake brand-name clothing… At a port in Papua New Guinea police have seized a 20-foot container full of counterfeit cigarettes… Assorted counterfeit good were seized during a raid in the US worth approximately $700,000… Pirated DVDs and CDs were seized in Hong Kong, Malaysia and the US yielding 12,000, 70,000 and 20,000 discs respectively.

Cases and outcomes last week include a payout of 3.51 million Yuan ($510,000) in compensation from a hospital, a pharmaceutical plant and a drug distributor to 11 plaintiffs who were victims of a fake drug scandal linked to 14 deaths in China in 2006… Two British brothers have been jailed for selling counterfeit goods via eBay; they were sentenced to two years and one year in jail respectively… In Canada a storeowner has been fined more than $1 million for selling counterfeit Louis Vuitton accessories… A court in the Netherlands has ruled against an interpretation of local copyright law that allowed for downloading of copyrighted material, until now downloading of copyrighted materials was allowed and only uploading forbidden. The judge ruled that when the original source is illegal, any copies too should be considered illegal… In the US, a man has been found guilty in the first criminal trial for online music piracy.

Studies and reports out last week include The Economic Impact of Counterfeiting and Piracy by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).