MPAA, Microsoft Testify Piracy Funds Terrorism 858
GuyMannDude writes "[Yesterday's] Oversight Hearing on "International Copyright Piracy: Links to Organized Crime and Terrorism" featured the MPAA and Microsoft testifying that software and movie DVD counterfeiting is an acute problem, with criminal gangs operating factories in Russia, Malaysia and other countries that have weak copyright laws. They further claim that intellectual property piracy is a vehicle for financing or supporting acts of terror." There's another article about the hearing at Infoworld.
Okay... (Score:3, Informative)
When most people say "what, do you want to support the terrorists?" they're joking.
I think these two monopolists have just showed their true selves as far as I'm concerned.
Anyone who can say something so ridiculous is a joke themselves.
RTFA (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, Microsoft & MPAA stated that pirating is rampant and bad.
They did *NOT* state that pirating=terrorism. That statement was made only by the Justice Department (which is not necessarily better, IMHO, but significantly different to the slant that the article lends).
From the article:
John Malcolm, a Justice Department official who oversees the computer crime division, warned the panel about the connections between copyright piracy and terrorism.
"Organized crime syndicates are frequently engaged in many types of illicit enterprises, including supporting terrorist activities," Malcolm said. "All components of the Justice Department...will do everything within their power to make sure that intellectual property piracy does not become a vehicle for financing or supporting acts of terror."
Re:Bullshiiiiiiitttttt (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft is supporting terrorism too (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Guess what? Religion funds Terrorism. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:they are getting desparate (Score:2, Informative)
Apparently, it's more than just occasionally:
From this [alternet.org] article:
BC sends more Bud to the US than it does Wood. Wow.
Perhaps Marijuana is the answer to terrorism? Allowing everyone to see "clearly", thus allowing us to all get along. It's worth a shot eh?
Cheers.
To be fair... (Score:5, Informative)
For now, at least, the corporations are not exactly synonymous with the government.... even if they do pull the strings.
Re:Bullshiiiiiiitttttt (Score:5, Informative)
Uh.. The Taliban had very strict laws against opium production. In fact, poppy cultivation has increased by 95% [bbc.co.uk] in Afganistan since the Taliban were removed. While I have no sympathy for the Taliban (certainly a brutally repressive regime), U.S. claims that they used opium production to finance terrorism seem specious to say the least. If there were terrorist groups making money by growing opium in Afganistan, they were most probably doing so without Taliban approval.
Re:We can laugh... (Score:5, Informative)
Your most cogent point is the last one you made... a war will simply continue the cycle of hate that has prospered in these times. In fact, my main concern is that no comprehensive plan and, more importantly in today's world, no long-term money has been committed to the rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan. If we drop that ball, so to speak, we're going to just create more hate and more terrorists.
Sujal
Re:We can laugh... (Score:3, Informative)
Here [abolition.org] is a story from back in January predicting the 300th execution in Texas. I recently saw on the local news in Houston that they just now executed the 300th inmate.
Belgarion
Re:We can laugh... (Score:3, Informative)
Wow, that really is a stretch. Iraq, despite having a great deal of national income from oil revenue, ran up massive debts during the Iran-Iraq war. Their greatest source of extra funding during that time was loans from the other rich Arab countries (remember that Iran is not an Arab country, but instead a Persian country, so it was easy for the other Arabs to take Iraq's side). Chief among these creditors was Kuwait. Upon the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Kuwait began agitating for Iraq to begin repaying those debts. This pretty much soured relations between Iraq and Kuwait, and Saddam, being the model of restraint that he is, decided that it was simpler to take Kuwait and make it an Iraqi province than to pay back the loans. The fact that he could then control the single larges oil supply in the world (Iraqi reserves + Kuwaiti reserves > Saudi reserves) was just icing on that cake.
Its pretty easy to keep following a train of responsibility until you get to a villain that suits you. The US gets a lot of crap that way, although most of our current entanglements we could easily blame on France and Great Britain and their respective colonial influences (almost all of the Middle East, Pakistan/India, and Vietnam are all directly attributable to either France or Great Britain, and what wasn't associated with those two was touched by Russia and China during the Cold War).
This is the same tactic being used by the MPAA/RIAA/BSA and the drug-war/abolition movements to blame all terrorism on counterfeiters and casual pot smokers. Its all bogus. I want to blame all terrorism on people who drive SUVs, and there are good arguments to support that theory. But to discount all the other myriad funding methods they have is just political opportunism. As of course, is asserting that 'All instability in the word is the US.'
i wish i had ARTICLE mod points (Score:5, Informative)
The slashdot submissions clearly says that microsoft and the MPAA are both testifying that piracy supports terrorism.
"[Yesterday's] Oversight Hearing on "International Copyright Piracy: Links to Organized Crime and Terrorism" featured the MPAA and Microsoft testifying that software and movie DVD counterfeiting is an acute problem, with criminal gangs operating factories in Russia, Malaysia and other countries that have weak copyright laws. They further claim that intellectual property piracy is a vehicle for financing or supporting acts of terror."
BULLSHIT
http://www.house.gov/judiciary/lamagna031303.pd
Here is the exact testimony of the microsoft lawyer. Terrorism is not mentioned a single time.
Microsoft's only contention here is that the majority of large scale piracy is done by very well funded operations with links to organized crime, primarily backed by and operating in countries with less strict or non-existant IP laws. It then goes on to say that much of the profit (and its nearly ALL profit) of these operations goes to funding other activity within those crime organizations, some of which is violent crime. There is PROOF of this cited in the comments. The only part of it that is conjecture is the estimated revenue and job losses due to piracy, the arguments against which are well known and do not need to be repeated here.
Nowhere in the microsoft testimony, nor in the ZDNET article is there any link between MS testimony and terrorism _at all_. Nowhere is MS claiming that piracy causes terrorism. Nowhere is there anything to indicate that MS and the MPAA are best friends in crushing your inner child.
This website might as well change its name to "microsoft_enquierer" or "microsoftdailysun" or some similar such tabloid name.
Oh wait! we already have theregister (which nearly every MS related article on slashdot invariably links to as an authoritative or credible source of "journalism")
If slashdot is going to try and act as a political or any other kind of entity, stick to the facts, clearly differentiate conjecture from reality, and at least make a half hearted attempt at being accurate.