New MPAA copyright enforcers
p2pnet news view MPAA | Kids & Kartels:- Britain’s The Times Online has picked up Hollywood’s latest farce – using the Scouts of America as copyright enforcers.
Owned by Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney, the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) recruited Hong Kong scouts some time back and when we ran a story on this last April, we wondered, “How long before Hollywood IP merit badges arrive in the US?”
Wonder no more. It’s now happening in America, with Los Angeles as the first stop and, no doubt, Canadian troops will soon feel Hollywood’s fetid breath on their necks, as will scouts in other parts of the world.
But until that dreadful day, only US and Hong Kong scouts will, “be able to earn their patches by evangelising about the evils of copyright piracy and turning in their friends and family for offending,” as The Times Online puts it, going on:
“In exchange for learning about the evils of downloading pirated movies and music, Scouts will be awarded an activity patch depicting a film reel, a music CD and the international copyright symbol, a ‘c’ enclosed in a circle.
“The 52,000 Scouts in Los Angeles will not be required to act as spies to earn their badge, although snitching is not discouraged. Instead, to complete the programme, they must play video games, watch movies and play their favourite songs for their Scout leaders, then list all the people who worked to produce them and how they would be affected if the work was pirated.”
According to the LA Scouts, a merit badge is for, “completing requirements in one of 120 career and hobby fields”.
Unfortunately, the Times story concludes by quoting equally farcical, and unproven, MPAA stats just as though they’re hard facts from a reputable source.
“An independent study last year estimated that MPAA studios lose more than $6.1 billion in revenues to piracy every year,” it says. “The total annual cost to the US economy is put at $20.6 billion.”
That’s certainly what the Big Six would like you to believe. But as p2pnet emphasised recently, far from being independent, these figures are based on a study released by the MPAA.
And they were bolstered by further stats from the Institute for Policy Innovation which, starting from an MPAA $6.1 billion claim, says the, “total impact of movie piracy in terms of lost jobs and tax revenue costs the US economy $20.5 billion”.
Stay tuned.
Also See:
The Times Online – Boy Scouts get a badge for tackling the movie pirates, October 28, 2006
copyright enforcers – GooTube rats out user, October 24, 2006
How long – MPAA IP scout badge farce, April 25, 2006
first stop – MPAA corrupts US Scouts, October 21, 2006
enrolling Hong Kong kids as spies – Hong Kong’s kiddie Net spies, May 31, 2006
emphasised recently – Tainted cartel ‘pirate’ stats, October 24, 2006
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