Nintendo pirate threat
p2pnet news view | Products:- “3 pirates may be dead in shootout,” said a recent p2pnet story, going on:
“That’s an Associated Press headline. So it must be true. Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG already have their own pseudo-cops and use enforcement agencies paid for by taxpayers as corporate copyright cops.
“So have they now been issued with gun permits and authorised to use deadly force when apprehending file sharers and counterfeiters?”
It wouldn’t come as any kind of a surprise, we said, adding, ” ‘Shot Penang ‘pirate CD’ victim,” quoting a p2pnet post from three years ago. And a Reader’s Write under the story said, ‘There was an African merchant named Ousmane Zango (I’ve seen it also spelled Zongo) who was killed by New York city police May 22, 2003 when they raided a warehouse trying to crack down on pirated CDs.”
The shooting under discussion involved real pirates, “not the artificial bad guys created by Hollywood and the Big 4 record labels for propaganda purposes”.
Now, though, the depredations of pirates of the sea are striking much closer to home, and with direct effect.
“Somali pirates have been plundering ships off the Horn of Africa for years, but the recent surge in attacks has spilled out into the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, threatening access to the Suez Canal,” says Reuters.
“Now big firms employed in moving everything from oil, gas and coal to toys,
So?
“These attacks are no longer 50 to 100 miles off Somalia they are 200 miles plus off the coast … this is not just guys in little fishing boats anymore,” the story has Sam Dawson of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) saying. “We know there are three probably ex-Soviet trawlers acting as mother ships.”
So?
Ship owners, ” are urgently considering whether to travel round South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope instead,” says the story.
They’re thinking of taking the long, long way around, in other words, and if they do, it’ll, “really hit home when consumers in the West find they haven’t got their Nintendo gifts this Christmas,” he said.
“If there isn’t a let up and active intervention by navies in the region, the impact on trade will come within weeks or months because we’ve gone from one attack every couple of weeks to four in a single day.”
The alternative voyage round the Cape of Good Hope, “would add upwards of three weeks to a typical journey, delaying goods to buyers and increasing transport costs,” says Reuters.
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p2pnet – Pirates killed during shoot-out, September 30, 2008
Reuters – No Nintendo game this Xmas? Blame Somali pirates, November 14, 2008
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November 18th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
For a interesting read on Pirates check this link out:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/13/retro_piracy_brouhaha_discussed/
November 18th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
je-sus. thats crazy. i bet they’re not all as cool and funny as jack sparrow…