MPAA kops in Bollywood raid
p2pnet.net News:- Unwelcome attention on the way the entertainment cartels dream up statistics so the mainstream press can quote them as facts is now being reflected in increasingly skeptical (to be kind) reports from corporate as well as online pro-p2p media.
In a new triumph, the Hollywood-owned MPAA Keystone Kops‘ Indian MPA Division and suborned Mumbai (formerly Bombay) police officers jointly handled a raid, “catching two men red-handed in the act of movie piracy and seizing 42 DVD-R burners”.
Why were the Bollywood movie pirates seizing the burners? Were they giving the KK a hand? Or is it just a badly written PR puff piece? Anything is possible when the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) is involved ; )
Anyway, the MPA and helpers, “also seized 1,123 DVD-Rs infringing MPA member company and Bollywood titles,” says the MPAA. And then, in a marked departure from normal procedure, it qualifies instead of quantifying the results.
“The 42 seized burners were capable – working 10 hours per day – of producing 3,628,800 pirated DVD-Rs in a year, yielding revenues of US$4.22 million (INR181,440,000),” it says.
Until recently, this would have appeared as something like, MPA seizes illegal DVD/CD replicating plant and copyrighted CDs worth US$4.22 million.
However, in one of its more memorable recent cock-ups, it splashed news of a ‘raid in LA, claiming to have seized CDS worth $30 million.
Unfortunately, the business was a legitimate duplicating facility and the “$30 million” was pure MPAA fiction.
The MPA adds that it “sharply increased” its investigation activities in Asia-Pacific, and conducted over 25,500 investigations in 2004, a 65% increase over 2003.
Of course, the Hollywood faux cops have to somehow get legitimate police officers involved in their commercial ‘busts’, which means the latter must drop their investigations into less serious crimes such as rape, burglary, assaults, and so on.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
increasingly skeptical – IFPI ‘ravaged by pirates’ report, p2pnet, June 24, 2005
Keystone Kops – MPAA kops in another ‘raid’, p2pnet, June 25, 2005
recent cock-ups – MPAA accused of slander, June 22, 2005
July 11th, 2005 at 11:04 pm
This is pretty ironic considering that Bollywood has been blatently ripping off Hollywood movie plots and remaking cheaper versions in Hindi for years and years.
July 12th, 2005 at 3:29 am
It happens both ways buddy, unless you watch lots of foreign movies you won’t notice a LARGE portion of “hollybird” movies are direct copies, or in the case they don’t have the artistic and creative skills necessary, just plain cheap remakes. Mind you, not many are “borrowed” from India, but you get the idea.
On the subject of all of this International Raid…. WTF???!!! How can a foreign industry body exert so much force on another countries police? What right do they have diverted precious resources from important matters (actual crimes such as espionage, murder, rape, break & enter, destruction, racketeering, etc)…. towards some low class street peddler who barely has enough food?!
It’s not even THEIR movie for goodness sakes! Shit man! Good thing I don’t support Hollyshit anymore with my wallet — that’s a shame because heavy movie goers like myself shell out one or two movies EVERY WEEK — but not anymore. I only watch foreign quality movies, and support local film makers now. God, and the shit on Television is just plain crap! “Reality” this, “reality” that — but when you stop to think, none of it is “reality”. My advice to liberal minded and open-minded music and movie lovers is to explore the international movie and music scene. Heck, have you tried out CREATIVE COMMONS — Wow, Pretty good stuff. Mind you, some are below par — but, that’s nothing, since ALL of the radio stations in my city play the same ‘old five songs’ over and over and over, and in between you have these “music” (if you can call it that) that makes you want to stick pens in your eyes. Yeah, that bad. CREATIVE COMMONS, has many links to sites with FRESH, hear that FRESH music, just like a breath of fresh air!
Well enough of my rant.