Battling the bootleggers

West Country millionaire’s counterfeit records racket shut down

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Richard Hutter’s office, stuffed with counterfeit and bootleg records 

On 4 April, the BPI and Dorset Trading Standards closed down a vinyl counterfeiting and bootlegging operation, resulting in 55-year-old Richard Hutter, of Matchams Close, St Leonards, Dorset, being ordered by Bournemouth Crown Court to pay £373,000 plus compensation. He was given a suspended prison sentence for sale of illegal counterfeit and bootleg vinyl records.

He pleaded guilty to 13 offences under the 1994 Trade Marks Act and 1988 Copyright, Design & Patents Act, along with one offence of money laundering under the 2002 Proceeds Of Crime Act. The case began when a fan of The Clash paid for an album offered by the Vinylgroove UK website and was unhappy with its audio quality. He complained to Trading Standards when Hutter refused a refund and its officers purchased several more records, a BPI representative identifying them as counterfeits. Trading Standards demonstrated that Hutter was selling counterfeits via his own website, and offering both fake LPs and bootlegs of unissued material through eBay and a US website. In July 2018, Hutter’s home was searched, and bootleg and counterfeit vinyl discs and sleeves seized, along with a phone and laptop. When questioned about the counterfeits by Trading Standards, Hutter claimed that he’d bought them from record fairs across Europe and didn’t know that they were counterfeits. However, his phone indicated that he’d had conversations trying to arrange for counterfeits to be paired with sleeves from several sources, while images of him in an office surrounded by vinyl were found.