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.
me thinks that RAND doth protest too much. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:me thinks that RAND doth protest too much. (Score:5, Insightful)
exactly. if you pirate movies are music make sure you get the online free version instead of the half price fake cd/dvd version.
In fact Organized crime would most likely love to have online P2P stopped. their low prices can't beat free.
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:speaking of interchangeble terms (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
I thought the MPAA was organized crime...
Re:speaking of interchangeble terms (Score:5, Funny)
Re:speaking of interchangeble terms (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the MPAA are a bunch of thugs.
RAND corporation, however, a sickening organization that profiteers by preparing "research papers" that deliberately misrepresents facts for the purpose of twisting social and economic policy to serve the agendas of big lobby groups, is the worst kind of organized crime; the kind that has government backing.
Follow the money. (Score:5, Insightful)
Next reports from RAND:
Employees should agree that they are paid too much.
Rich people are wonderful leaders, and should be allowed to do anything they want.
The U.S. government's policy of killing people will bring peace.
The failures of banks in the United States were completely unforeseeable. When Warren Buffett predicted problems in 2002, he was talking about something else.
The U.S. government should buy more weapons. You never know when they will be needed.
Re:speaking of interchangeble terms (Score:4, Funny)
I am a fiction writer by trade,
are they hiring?
Re:speaking of interchangeble terms (Score:4, Funny)
No, their research team is full.
Re: (Score:2)
RAND members should be shot on the spot for propagating this crap as factual thruth under the "objective Analysis" label. The only objective thing is that they are paid by MPAA.
Unfortunately ours is not a very elinghtened society...
Blah blah Blah blah (Score:5, Interesting)
The geek in full flight.
For a look at the full spectrum of RAND research: Browse by Category [rand.org]
Free downloads - PDF or HTML.
Here is the briefest of samplings from the RAND Classics: [rand.org]
Williams "The Compleat Strategyst: Being a Primer on the Theory of Games of Strategy" 1954
Dresher "Games of Strategy: Theory and Applications" 1961
Dole and Asimov "Planets For Man"
Baran, ed. "On Distributed Communications" 1961-62
"A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates" 2001
Shapiro and Anderson "Toward an Ethics and Etiquette for Electronic Mail"
I'll save everyone time and give you the link:
Kahn "The Nature and Feasibility of War and Deterrence" [rand.org] 1960
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Hrrrm, organized crime and terrorists want to have p2p stopped and the MPAA wants p2p stopped; thus the MPAA must be either a terrorist organization or organized crime or both.
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Of course, the same argument applies to the full-price MPAA version: the only way to reduce the potential for misuse of funds is to cut out as many middle-men as possible.
Re:me thinks that RAND doth protest too much. (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed - by this reasoning, the Government should be promoting, and certainly not opposing, free downloading, as part of its War On Terrorrr. Surely, the threat of terrorism is far more serious than any alleged loss of a few sales? "If it saves just one life" etc :)
Re:me thinks that RAND doth protest too much. (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed - by this reasoning, the Government should be promoting, and certainly not opposing, free downloading, as part of its War On Terrorrr. Surely, the threat of terrorism is far more serious than any alleged loss of a few sales? "If it saves just one life" etc :)
Moreover, the government should immediately stamp out all movie production. This RAND study has clearly proven that movies are merely fodder for the illicit money-making activities of terrorists and organized crime.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
likely driveby infection
Re:me thinks that RAND don't protest too much. (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah - these days we have the 'terrorist ghost', earlier we had the 'communist ghost'.
I wonder what's next.
The worst thing is that the gullible public falls for it. Especially those that aren't up to date with all details - like members of various courts.
It is of course possible that there are terrorist factions that makes money from counterfeiting and duplication of music&movies, but considering that counterfeit products often are cheap and sometimes have bad quality it must be a minor source of income when all production costs are paid. And download from torrents must be a very thin source of income.
It must be a lot easier to make money from cocaine and other drugs since they have a much higher price when they are offered to the consumer. Weapons are also more interesting to trade in for terrorists. Transfer of a load of AK47:s and other items to an African country can provide a decent profit. Think Somalia & pirates and where they did get their weapons.
Extortion and various types of scams are also good income sources. Check out Hells Angels, Bandidos and other organized crime gangs. Just be aware that those gangs are the soldiers on the field, connect the traces and you can end up in surprising places.
What's Next? (Score:5, Insightful)
There may be no 'next'. Terrorism is timeless and can be milked forever.
And the fear of not being 'with us' sill squelch a lot of people that disagree.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah - these days we have the 'terrorist ghost', earlier we had the 'communist ghost'.
I wonder what's next.
That would be the ghost of common sense. Pretty sure that poor bastard is dead these days.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"I wonder what's next."
The Nationalization Ghost.
Look for it to become a household word just in time for the healthcare reform debate.
Re:me thinks that RAND don't protest too much. (Score:5, Interesting)
Al Qaeda is known to have substantial capital
Reading this [amazon.com] I rather got the impression that they were strapped for cash most of the time, and what they had they had got through legal dealings with the US of other Bin Laden family parts.
So would Afghan opium, which the Taliban has extensively invested in.
Blatant misrepresentation. By 2000 the Taliban had banned opium production and by 2001,
. -- http://opioids.com/afghanistan/index.html [opioids.com]
One wonders how important that was for the US to start the war in Afghanistan, considering that a lack of Afghan opium would be a severe problem for the so-called "War on Drugs" in the US, a war that the government wages against its own citizens.
I said in a private offline conversation (so I unfortunately cannot provide a link) at Christmas 2001 that I expected the Afghan opium production to be back at the world's number 1 within five years, and lo and behold,
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium [wikipedia.org] (follow the references)
-- http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/2005_Afghan_opium_harvest_begins [wikinews.org]
Re:me thinks that RAND don't protest too much. (Score:5, Informative)
No, that's a blatant misrepresentation. Read this story: [metimes.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting, thanks for the link. So it seems that different UN representatives say different things. I retract my clear-cut statement and settle for "I don't know, then".
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Outstanding comments by both Knuckles and Z00L00K.
One must always look at the backgrounds of the "fellows" at RAND (and every other "stink tank") prior to reading their "studies"....
Whenever a BUSH invades a country, the drug trade increases substantially (note falling cocaine processing production in Panama - under their, then present, and previous presidents - then Bush Senior invades and once again it sky rockets upwards).
Just as with the present US Secretary of the Treasury, Geithner, it pays to researc
Re:me thinks that RAND don't protest too much. (Score:5, Insightful)
We wage so-called wars on organized crime, gangs, and prostitution rings. We have always worked hard to break up criminal operations. Drug users are not some special group that deserve exception.
Governments make the crime, criminals commit it. Legalize drugs and they are no longer criminals. Problem solved.
Just because you have a grip on your addiction doesn't mean a crackhead who is stealing spark plugs and DVD players has the same willpower you do.
Assuming that the person was addicted to drugs, how is it different then someone stealing spark plugs and DVD players to fill a "legal" addiction such as gambling, alcohol and cigarettes? Is stealing wrong, yes, but would these people have to steal to get their addiction if these drugs were regulated in the same way alcohol and cigarettes are regulated rather then all-out banned?
It may not have destroyed your life, but making drugs legal/free/cheap/easier to get will be hell for so many others. In my town we just lost four teenagers in an car accident; they had been smoking salvia (which is legal) beforehand. If we are already struggling with the effects of "legal highs", how much worse will it get when we throw in currently illegal drugs into the mix?
But similarly, if they had been drinking the results would have been the same, but look at what prohibition did, it simply made ordinary people into criminals and let unscrupulous people get rich. People need to know what these drugs can do, yes, but they need a way to look at it without the tinted lenses of "This is brought to you by the counsel for the elimination of drugs", this is like trying to teach abstinence only, its a good idea, but not everyone is going to follow it, and when they don't, bad things happen.
I agree with you, ideally we should not have drugs. Fact: Drugs exist. Fact: Drugs can be easily bought even with all of our regulations on it Fact: Because of the prohibition of drugs, the money that comes from drugs goes to lawbreakers, these lawbreakers then use the money to fund more crime. Fact: Drugs can ruin lives, marriages, and relationships, but so can a lot of legal things, alcohol, gambling, and consumerism
People will always get drugs, they have since the dawn of time, the war on drugs though makes sure that the people who get drugs end up handing money to the wrong people, those that will use the money not to benefit themselves and others but rather use the money for violence. These people who get rich, usually end up screwing those who buy from them by poisoning the drugs they sell, the free market solution (take them to court and sue them for everything they own), doesn't work because what they were doing was illegal, so no one wins.
*Disclaimer, I do not use drugs, yes, I have seen the affects of what drugs do, and seen the affects of what legal things do (gambling, drinking, smoking, etc) too
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:me thinks that RAND don't protest too much. (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering that the RAND Corporation has done actual research -- and you have done nothing --I see no substantial reason to doubt their conclusions. Even the MPA connection is fine by me, despite the submitter's insinuations.
You're right that there's plenty of real money to be made from bootlegging, and in that respect the research is probably right, but the conclusions that they come to based on their research are completely wrong.
The fallacy here is that RAND is equating online piracy with bootlegging, and concluding that since bootlegging helps the terrorists, online piracy helps the terrorists. The reality is that online piracy and bootlegging are completely at odds. People who download torrents generally don't buy bootlegs because they can get better quality and cheaper online. If anything, online piracy hurts the bootlegging industry.
People respond irrationally when they're afraid, and the MPA is hoping to take advantage of this to get Americans to believe that torrents 'helps the terrorists' even though a rational look at the situation suggests exactly the opposite. This is a cynical and calculated PR move in the MPA's ongoing campaign against piracy.
It probably is true that buying bootleg dvds supports terrorism, so if you're a patriotic American, you should download torrents instead of buying bootlegged copies!
Re: (Score:2)
The report repeatedly mentions online piracy and praises france's deal with ISPs.
It also misses several (inconvinient) key facts and has numerous logical errors.
The main reason why so much money can be made by counterfeiting movies in developing countries is because of the international scope of copyright combined with local and national licensing schemes and total ignorance of the rights holders to these markets.
If they were serious about preventing counterfeit sales in developing markets they would scrap
The most funny thing (Score:2)
Is the part about "helps funding organized crime". I always thought that the purpose of organized crime was to make moner, and that it was pretty much "self-sustained".
But now I find that those poor criminals must sell bootlegs to get a income while breaking the law (I suppose they do not know how to make money with burglary, assault, drug trafficking, etc.).
In the end, it must be true that "Crime does not pay".
Re: (Score:2)
Ummm.. (Score:2)
Since when does commercial counterfeiting have anything to do with public policy surrounding P2P?
And as the **AA is well aware, their high prices are the main driver of commercial counterfeiting.
Re:Ummm.. (Score:5, Insightful)
They're both based on "intellectual property". So they're gambling that laws protecting "IP" will be good for them.
"Intellectual Property" (Score:5, Informative)
Which you surely put in quotes for a reason (as in the words of Richard M. Stallman [gnu.org]):
Re: (Score:2)
I put it into quotes for many reasons, not the least of which I don't think they should be lumped together. On the other hand, their past actions seem to indicate an interest in having more and more interconnect between trademark and copyright, specifically, and harsher, less definite laws governing them.
Only one solution then... (Score:5, Insightful)
If something's available for less there's always someone who will buy it. The only solution therefore is to make this stuff available for free and starve the "terrorists" and "organised crime syndicates" of money. Anyone who opposes peer-to-peer networking supports terrorism.
Re: (Score:2)
This is a fairly general rule; any policy that artificially inflates prices beyond competitive market price creates a profit opportunity for anyone willing to violate the policy.
This is true whether the subject is a desired product that is completely forbidden (drugs, for example), a highly taxed item (alcohol, tobacco or even gasoline in places) or an artificially imposed monopoly pricing right such as copyrights and patents.
As the profitability is a function of enforcement, stricter enforcement merely lea
Re:Only one solution then... (Score:4, Insightful)
My understanding is that the supposed "terrorist-counterfeiters" are selling physical media. Forcing them to compete with a free product could indeed put them in the red - they would not be paying customers, but rather their suppliers of media.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Buy this movie or the dog gets it" ...
Re:Only one solution then... (Score:4, Funny)
heheheh. I'm never going to see the RCA dog the same way again.
Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse at work (Score:2)
Occam's razor points elsewhere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Next thing you know they'll be saying Tony Soprano was responsible.
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No, these pirates are the ones the *AA should have been fighting all the time, not the people downloading a few things.
These pirates are the ones who attempt to make an exact copy down to the packaging. They use professional grade DVD hardware that will read/write the disk CSS, serial number, media ID and all. Unlike the people they like to sue, these pirates pass their copies off as originals (with varying degrees of successs). They offer them at a substantial discount so people won't look too close.
When
Re^2:Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse at work (Score:2)
It is still implausible why The Godfather or the average warlord would want to catch their share of cuts from a falling knife too, and should have found no avenues to criminal proceeds that are mor
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And yet, bootleg DVDs are everywhere. Probably because most of them originate from China where you're far more likely to be punished for littering than for bootlegging hollywood movies. In such an operation, the fact that you're shipping a ophysical product is a plus since it explains where all that cash is coming from. It looks legitimate so long as law enforcement doesn't actually inspect the product you ship too closely. Meanwhile, inspecting things carefully involves actual work and illegal drugs are mu
oblig (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
seed plz
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Perhaps, but they didn't say "a source of income", they said "funding their activities" - as in "subsidizing our extortion and illegal drug operations" by selling bootleg copies of Gigli.
I tell you, it's a sad, sad day when the Mafia can't make ends meet with cocaine and heroin, and instead has to resort to movie piracy!
Organised crime link probably true, (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
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!
Re: (Score:2)
So, commercial movie piracy is funding terrorism.
And organized crime is funding legitimate projects. News at 11.
aXXo, FXG, FXM... (Score:2)
I pay nothing for any of their releases. Some of them have gone on the record stating that they do it just because they like to. Now I suppose if someone burned those rips and sold them they could fund terrorism. Or alcoholism, or about anything else.
Re: (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.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
suspected terrorists (Score:2)
It seems that the definition for terrorism has been broadened (see USA Patriot Act) and that it doesn't take that much these days to be a "suspected" terrorist. Also consider that you're now prohibited by law from being aware of this official suspicion. The Obama DOJ, just this past week, did some legal maneuvering to avoid a ruling on whether the president can detain someone indefinitely without charges. That is, they filed charges, which is the Right Thing, but they did it in order to render the pendin
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!
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.
Re:More insightful than funny (Score:3, Insightful)
While I don't necessarily agree with our current drug laws, I am definitely not pro-drug and anyone deciding they can enjoy them as a strictly victim-less crime is sorely mistaken. Musicians whose music glorifies violence, drug
Then Again (Score:2)
If you purchase a movie legitimately, a good chunk of the profits end up in the hands of terrorists via rampant drug abuse anyway.
Conclusion: If you love America (/country of choice), use p2p
Study is too ironic to exist in this universe (Score:2)
Seriously, they propose that movies about drugs, murder, sex, and other illegal things go to fund drugs, murder, sex, and other illegal things? I'll just wear these earplugs while the universe pops out of existence.
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.
The RAND Corporation (Score:4, Interesting)
RAND was set up in 1946 by the United States Army Air Forces as Project RAND, under contract to the Douglas Aircraft Company, and in May 1946 they released the Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship. In May 1948, Project RAND was separated from Douglas and became an independent non-profit organization. Initial capital for the split came from the Ford Foundation.
According to the 2005 annual report, "about one-half of RAND's research involves national security issues."
Many of the events in which RAND plays a part are based on assumptions which are hard to verify because of the lack of detail on RAND's highly classified work for defense and intelligence agencies.
The RAND Corporation has been criticized as militarist. Due to the nature of its work, the RAND corporation also frequently plays a role in conspiracy theories.
In April 1970, a Newhouse News Service story reported that Richard Nixon had commissioned RAND to study the feasibility of canceling the 1972 election.
RAND has approximately 1,600 employees and five principal locations.
Seems like a fine objective non-profit think tank to me, helping to improve policy and decision making through objective research and analysis.
This is NOT about P2P (Score:2)
Crikey RTFA.
It's about physical counterfeiting. It's why guys like DuPont Authentication Services
http://www2.dupont.com/Authentication/en_US/ [dupont.com]
offer various authentication technologies like 3D holograms for media protection.
Wait, wait! (Score:2)
Whoah there cowboy! If I'm downloading films for *FREE*, how can that be financing anything? I mean, to "finance" something means getting money, right?
will you p (Score:2)
And if a study saying the opposite was funded by a grant from the EFF, none of you would even mention it. RAND is not going to sell out just because one study was funded by the MPAA. If they had been, they sure as hell would have found more than 3 out of 14
focusing criticism on RAND's interchangeable use of the terms "piracy" and "counte
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The biggest takeaway I get from this report is that you can never be certain physical media isn't counterfeit, so the only way to make certain you aren't financing criminals is to get all your music and video via P2P. But then, I'm only about the 100th person on here to say that. The M
Here's where P2P comes in (Score:2)
Because the existence of P2P (and DVD writers in most PCs these days) doesn't exactly lend plausibility to the assertion of counterfeit movies as an easy way to substantial funding?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
RAND is not going to sell out just because one study was funded by the MPAA
I don't think it would be possible for RAND to sell out. That would imply that they had some objectivity or integrity to start with. I find RAND a good filter word. Just as when someone says 'beowulf' it's a sure sign that they don't know anything about cluster computing, when someone quotes a RAND report (or, worse, puts 'RAND Fellow' on their business card) it's fairly safe to assume that they don't have the faintest clue about economics.
It doesn't have to make money (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Umm, I was under the impression that by laundering money, you conceal your illicit activities by showing a perfectly legal business to authorities. If the cops turn up and want to know the source and destination of all your money, it probably isn't going to help by saying "oh yes, I made all this money selling dodgy DVDs at the local market."
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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...
Free downloads (Score:2)
Well, it's the sale of counterfeit movies which can provide revenue to the groups producing them...
When you go to buy a movie, it's hard to tell wether it's counterfeit or not, so you *could* be giving money to these evil groups, wether they be terrorists or the MPAA.
So the answer?
Download for free, that way nobody evil makes any profit.
government = terrorism... (Score:2)
at least as long as they keep scaring us with terrorist acts unless we support their policies...
hmm, or maybe they can be seen as organized crime, in the racketeering kind of way?
yay, i just proved that government is criminal. this cant be good...
Hahahahaha!! But seriously... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is so damn ridiculous that I couldn't help but laugh. How the hell can organized crime or terrorists make money out of free downloads?
But then again, as I considered it, they could make money out of bootlegs from the stuff they downloaded from torrents. There are mass disk burning operations where I come from, and since bandwidth isn't as cheap here (the highest bandwidth for residential accounts is, IIRC, 2Mbps) as it is in the US, people come to "bootleg bazaars" in droves to buy 16 movies-in-one DVD9s for PhP50 (~US$1).
This could indeed fund organized crime. It is certainly a possibility, as there is a market for bootlegs even though movies and other such content is freely available online. I myself bought more than 150 disks since DVDs went mainstream here (about 8 years ago) and I was still on dial-up, and almost everyone I know did the same.
Banning file-sharing won't actually do anything to stop this though, maybe if the damn movie/music industry would price their stuff more reasonably rather than spiking the price of every crappy new release, none of this would happen.
Right now, I blame RIAA/MPAA. If anyone's funding organized crime and terrorists, it's them.
This just in... legitimate jobs funding terrorism. (Score:2)
Fake DVDs "support" drug dealers (Score:2)
"This heroin just isn't selling at all. People can take it or leave it. Thank God for the Harry Potter DVDs!"
using these standards (Score:3)
you could link prostate cancer to Japanese school girls.
They are using fuzzy language and blurring the boundaries between terrorism and organized crime.
In Russia, organized crime is responsible for computer fraud and makes several millions of dollars per year through extortion and phishing. I doubt they're selling DVDs.
In India and Malaysia, the newfound technical skills of the cheap labor force is being put to use in phishing attacks earning several millions of dollars per year. I would believe they are funding terrorism. I doubt they're selling DVDs.
In China, organized crime and/or the government (whose lines are already blurred) have institutionalized hacking. There is more spam sent from Chinese servers than anywhere else. I doubt there is terrorism being funded. They are definitely selling DVDs.
In Africa, organized crime, governments, and possibly terrorists are using sophisticated scams to steal money and merchandise from westerners. They are definitely NOT selling DVDs. Nigeria, the hub of fraud in Africa, has a booming film industry. It has very little piracy or counterfeiting.
When I download a movie from bit torrent, no money is changing hands. I'm not supporting either organized crime or terrorism. It's neither piracy nor counterfeiting. It is not stealing anything from anyone. I have not cost anyone anything. I did not break any laws. The guy who puts the movie on the Internet is definitely guilty of civil copyright infringement. Anyone would be quite hard pressed to prove that he funded terrorism. The links are smoke and mirrors. Organized crime thrives through fraud and computer crime. Terrorism thrives through benefactors and fraud.
This report is one very narrow point of view from a very long distance.
Who RAND is (Score:2)
Notable names include:
Donald Rumsfeld,
Condoleezza Rice,
Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Henry Kissinger,
James F. Digby,
(ohhh,we know how much we can trust those three)
On top of that several military experts, researchers in the field of nuclear warfare. Yeah there are also some interesting smart people in there but given the amount of theorists employed to develop and analyze war strategies this is a highly suspicious source of information to say the least. The MPAA lets
In fact ... (Score:4, Insightful)
... the wide availability of (free or very inexpensive) digital downloads is killing off the demand for counterfeit DVDs.
We're doing our part to deprive the terrorists of their sources of financing.
What news! (Score:2)
Groups which operate illegally and try to achieve their goals with non legal means might use non legal means to finance themselves! What an important information! What's next? The money gained by robbing a bank might land in the hands of criminals?
RAND != credibility (Score:3, Insightful)
While RAND must be applauded for disclosing the funding participants, they still loose severely on credibility.
They are no longer an organization which I feel confident about as an organization providing policiticians or society in general with objective research.
As such they ought to be more serious about their research objectives and their reputation, by not allowing them to become puppets in disguise.
Their credibility is down the drain.
RAND research is no longer to be trusted.
Subject (Score:3)
1. Buy videocamera
2. Purchase movie ticket and $200 worth of concessions (i.e., 1 small Pepsi and a box of Milk Duds)
3. Put bad cam rip on P2P
4. ???
5. PROFIT
Making sure no money can be made from "piracy"... (Score:2)
Re:Fundamental Difference (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a fundamental difference between economic and non-economic piracy.
Yes, economic pirates go for the galleons and merchantmen as well as plundering small, poorly defended towns; whereas non-economic pirates attack frigates and other warships, however these are usually referred to as privateers.
Oh wait, what were we talking about?
Copyright infringement is not the same as "piracy". No one dies. No ships get sunk. And nothing gets STOLEN. Copyrighted works get digitally copied, though.
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No theft has occurred. A breach of copyright law has though.
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Just because a word gets used often enough in the wrong context, especially by the gutter press or corporations with a vested interest in making the association, does not magically turn it into the right context.
I mean FFS, reference.com ??? Next he'll be quoting wikipedia.com as a reliable source ... oh, wait he DID, when he completely misunderstood the meaning of the word homonym.
Homonyms : words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings, examples "bear (noun), an
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Yes, yes, I should have expanded further ...
Homonyms do not include words used in the wrong context to generate emotive responses or trigger associate behaviour in the unwashed masses.
Copyright = unemotive factual item related to ownership laws.
Pirate = person who attacks boats, and may wear any combination of eye patch, wooden leg, hook for a hand and shoulder parrot.
Copyright Pirate = BAAAAAAAADDDDD ... you see how that works, an emotive response via association of uncontextually related words ?
I'd advise
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Except in Hungary where both sides use hovercrafts. Full of eels.
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I waa, waaa, waaant to fundle your bottom.
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The terrorists probably also used toilet paper, but is it relevant ?
I don't remember seeing any news reports about the number of deaths from low flying boats, whereas the number of deaths from bullet wounds was, I believe, considerably higher.
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a building gets blown up.
Awesome! Do I get to choose which one?
Bot-herding spammers could be linked to terrorism! (Score:2)
With the potential of most botnets to stop spamming and start DDoSing entire nations within instants, bot-herders should indeed be prosecuted like any other suspect procuring the means for and possibly preparing a terrorist assault.
Then again, the DMA [wikipedia.org] probably won't afford (or even appreciate) stor^H^Hudies like this these days to make the case for a crackdown on what are probably perceived as "just