Film Piracy, Organized Crime and Terrorism 198
flip-flop writes "The RAND Corporation has just released a lengthy report titled "Film Piracy, Organized Crime, and Terrorism" which attempts to link all three. The authors suggest that organized crime might be financing itself in part through movie piracy (PDF) — and in three out of 14 of their international case studies, they claim that profits from piracy end up with suspected terrorist organizations. But now for the interesting part! Quote from the preface: 'The study was made possible by a grant from the Motion Picture Association (MPA).' Ah, what a surprise..."
The RAND Corporation has made a video summary of the report as well. TorrentFreak has an article disputing some of the report's claims, focusing criticism on RAND's interchangeable use of the terms "piracy" and "counterfeiting" — the report deals with the physical distribution of DVDs, making only brief mention of digital downloads. The MPAA and others have barked up this tree before.
oblig (Score:5, Funny)
Organised crime link probably true (Score:5, Funny)
If you are talking about the sales of illegal copies of CD's, then this is likely to be a source of income for organised crime. In Hong Kong the sales of pirated disks is as a matter of fact a source of income for the triads, highly organised crime. And besides that, the whole sale of infringing materials is illegal (possibly a crime: not everything illegal is a crime), so almost by definition the organisations doing this are organised crime.
The link with terrorism is not too far fetched, as again terrorism is for sure illegal and presumably criminally so, and it tends to be organised, thus lots of terrorist organisations fall under organised crime as well simply for being criminal and organised.
Luckily (in a way), most piracy a.k.a. copyright infringement these days is file sharing between individuals, and no money changes hands in the process. Well maybe some advertising income for the torrent tracking site or so, but that's all then, and if even The Pirate Bay can barely cover cost, most other tracker sites will be running at a loss. Not much money for funding crime there, then.
Fight Terrorism (Score:5, Funny)
So, commercial movie piracy is funding terrorism. But if people can make their own bootleg copies, they won't buy the commercially pirated movies, and so the terrorists will go belly up.
So fight terrorism, put that movie on p2p today!
Meanwhile, the commercial pirates often pass their copies off as legitimate. Even retail outlets can be fooled sometimes. Don't risk supporting terrorists, download that movie!
Osama bin Laden! (Score:5, Funny)
Bringing down western civilization by downloading episodes of Battlestar Galactica instead of paying for cable.
Thank you MPA for saving the day!
Re:aXXo, FXG, FXM... (Score:3, Funny)
they could fund terrorism. Or alcoholism, or about anything else.
Even politicians? I know, I know - I'm going to far. Surely no one could be THAT terrible.
Then again (Score:5, Funny)
Buy a legitimate copy and a good deal of the profits end up in the hands of terrorists via the huge amount of drugs abused in Hollywood anyway.
If you love America(/your country), use p2p.
speaking of interchangeble terms (Score:5, Funny)
Organized crime would most likely love to have online P2P stopped.
Of course the MPAA would love that, they keep saying so every chance they get!
Re:oblig (Score:2, Funny)
seed plz
Re:speaking of interchangeble terms (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Only one solution then... (Score:3, Funny)
"Buy this movie or the dog gets it" ...
I know how this story goes (Score:4, Funny)
The RAND corporation will be employing Jack Bauer to help with their investigation torturing suspected grandmothers and little kids for the source of their illegal DVD copies of Sesame Street. Nevermind they don't have a DVD player, in which there are also unamerican so they deserve what is coming to them.
GOD BLESS MPAA.
Wait, the story is not a movie script? Nevermind...
Re:Only one solution then... (Score:4, Funny)
heheheh. I'm never going to see the RCA dog the same way again.
Re:Study is too ironic to exist in this universe (Score:5, Funny)
I hate to break it to you, but sex isn't illegal. Those women have just been trying not to hurt your feelings.
Re:Fundamental Difference (Score:2, Funny)
Re:speaking of interchangeble terms (Score:4, Funny)
I am a fiction writer by trade,
are they hiring?
Re:Then again (Score:1, Funny)
LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!!1!
Re:speaking of interchangeble terms (Score:4, Funny)
No, their research team is full.