Movie piracy linked to international terrorism?

Movie piracy is one of those things that we all agree is bad -- but just how bad? I have friends who see it as little more than a victimless crime while the Motion Picture Assn. of America views it as something akin to the end of Western civilization. But it's never been linked to terrorism -- until now.

A new Rand Corp. report, titled "Film Piracy, Organized Crime and Terrorism," claims that DVD piracy has become a hotbed for organized crime, which uses the proceeds to finance the drug trade, money laundering scams, extortion and human smuggling. The study goes on to say: "Three of the documented cases provide clear evidence that terrorist groups have used the proceeds of film piracy to finance their activities." Among the terrorist groups it cites are the IRA, India's D-Company and a DVD pirate named Assad Ahmad Barakat, who the report says once received a thank-you note for his fundraising efforts from Hezbollah -- a pretty good sign in their eyes that he must be a nefarious character. He was also labeled a "global terrorist" in 2004 by the Bush administration.

I have to admit this all sounded pretty scary, until I noticed a critique of the Rand study on TorrentFreak that claims that the study was funded by the MPAA, which, in addition to not exactly being an objective source, has a long track record of crying wolf when it comes to piracy claims. (In 2005, for example, an MPAA study that made headlines with its claim that 44% of Hollywood's piracy losses came from college students illegally downloading movies turned out to be full of wildly inflated numbers, as this 2008 story revealed.) 

The post, written by Ben Jones, points out that the study acknowledges using the terms "piracy" and "counterfeiting" interchangeably, although they often mean totally different things: "Piracy in this context tends to refer mostly to digitally representable items, while counterfeit goods can run the gamut from aircraft parts to cigarettes." It also questions the actual evidence linking some of the crimes to piracy. And I have to admit that some of the evidence seems, well, shaky, especially in Rand's strangely melodramatic account of 21 illegal Chinese immigrants who "drowned in the rising tide of Morecambe Bay while harvesting shellfish at night in treacherous waters." Exactly how is this linked to DVD piracy? Well, according to Rand, the victims had been "forced into servitude by a slavemaster whose accomplice was found to have 4,000 counterfeit DVDs, copiers and other equipment used for film piracy."

So it wasn't even the "slavemaster" who had anything to do with piracy -- it was simply his accomplice, whose links to the enslaved illegal immigrants are, well, somewhat nebulous, since there's no proof offered that this "accomplice" had anything to do with the shellfish harvesting. TorrentFreak's critique speculates that the true purpose of this new report is to help advance the MPAA's anti-piracy agenda by encouraging new, tougher anti-piracy laws. The study's recommendations include turning over key piracy cases to organized crime divisions of prosecutor offices and granting investigators greater authority to conduct surveillance and obtain search warrants.

Call me a skeptic. If there's a clear-cut connection between terrorism and organized crime and DVD pirates, I'd like to see stronger evidence than what this report has to offer.   

Comments

[zxcvb]

"DVD piracy has become a hotbed for organized crime, which uses the proceeds to finance the drug trade, money laundering scams, extortion and human smuggling."

Replace "DVD piracy" with "Capitol Hill" and that statement will be 1000X more true. If they want us to be safe, they should figure out a way for us to stop creating so many terrorists with our short-sighted foreign policy.

[Magnus]

Movie piracy should be fought at all cost, but the MPAA are shooting themselves in the foot with this publicity stunt. They should instead be looking at alternatives like inexpensive streaming or better promotion of Blu-Ray disc. People will still want to put movies on their shelves in the same way that people keep books on their shelves: As a display of status or personality. What the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu would call cultural capital.

MPAA should still try to convince people that piracy is amoral and disruptive to the industry. But this feeble attempt to link piracy to terrorism only weakens their argument.

[Pedro]

I live in Brazil, and in my country it is pretty clear that the business of selling counterfeit products (DVDs and others) is in the hands of the Chinese mafia and of the local drug lords. One can only guess what those people do with the proceedings, but I am not inclined to believe it is anything good. I think North American and European commentators should starting seeing the big picture when dealing with the issue of piracy. It may be a "victimless crime" in those parts of the world, but it IS a big deal elsewhere.

[granster]

Wow, the MPAA distorting facts and equating piracy with terrorism? They've never tried to conflate illegal copying and downloading with other crimes before, have they? Oh wait... sure they have: http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/11/5580.ars, "MPAA equates pirated DVDs to 'drugs on the street' "!

[granster]

Wow, the MPAA distorting facts and equating piracy with terrorism? They've never tried to conflate illegal copying and downloading with other crimes before, have they? Oh wait... sure they have: http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/11/5580.ars, "MPAA equates pirated DVDs to 'drugs on the street' "!

[bing]

Aw, come on - terrorism? that's passe ... Bush is already out... Think of another catch phrase please

[James]

ha, just download movies for free!

LOL that should be the slogan here, If you are going to 'Pay" for a pirated movie then the proceeds of that can fund whomever or whatever the person who sold it to you wants.

But, if you Download for free, you got it made, no funding of terrorism at all. :) and you can sleep well at night.

Yep Slogan "Never pay for movies" :)

[Bruce Simmons (brusimm)]

What I find amazing is how people think it's OK, here in the U.S. to just rip off people. Sure, they make their billion, but it's trickle down. The middle and smaller guy do get hurt when they're forced to charge stupid prices as they get charged higher fees by the studios.

There's an editorial article on ScreenRant.com in reaction to the Wolverine movie being leaked to the Internet and the comments flew high and fast. (http://tinyurl.com/dfdgsc )

Oddly, as the post hit the front page of DIGG, it got buried. Fascinating demographic.

It's certainly a gray area of consumerism. That's for sure.