Criminal Organisations.. some advice please…

So I was watching something on video piracy last night and it said that amongst other things video piracy funds child pornography, people trafficing and drug smuggling. I seem to remember a similar warning at the beginning of rental videos (pre skipping it on DVDs).

Now what I want to know then is… are the other activities loss leaders? You know, get people smoking crack before palming off a dodgy copy of Dancing with Wolves… Or do criminals just people traffic for a bit of a laugh instead of financial gain. Seems like a waste of time if it eats into the piracy profits?

Yours confused,

Yeti.

Don’t forget video piracy also funds terrorism.

al’Qaeda loves a bit of Pretty Woman.

I think it all comes down to “image”

No matter how much they try and spruce up copyright infringement by naming themselves “pirates”, everyone knows its not a particularly badass thing to be into.

I wouldnt want to be known as the sort of criminal who pays upto £6 of my own hard earned (plus extras for popcorn/other snacks) to go and sit motionless/emotionless, with a handycam on my lap, through 110 minutes of The Hangover 2.

Doing a bit of drug smuggling (even if its not making you any money) is a definite image enhancer.

I think it is like when people say “Speed cameras are just a way of raising money out of drivers.” and then “If we had fewer speed cameras, we could afford more traffic police.”

They basically have a bunch of stupid arguments which taken separately make sense but once you think about the consequences of them all together they are obviously talking rubbish.

Joe

I thought it was so they could buy rum?

I can see how the pirates have got into people smuggling, seems a obvious sideline.

I preferred listening to the warning about sexual swearwords

I suspect criminal gangs are well managed like multinationals, but with a better moral code. Thankfully, just like the business world, criminals now also focus on transferable skills to make them appealing in the market place. therefore they can turn their project management skills to any task piracy, trafficking, drug runner – it is a highly moblie workplace and you need to move with the times.
The only other alternative is that it is BS by the media companies designed to frightem us off buying their products for a much cheaper price but like the purveyors of fiction would make something up.

It’s home taping that you want to fear – that’s actually KILLING music, and has been for some years

It’s starting to make sense…

If you use the people that you traffic as drug mules you’re already killing two birds with one stone. The pirates have the boats to do this.

It’s home taping that you want to fear – that’s actually KILLING music, and has been for some years

Couldnt agree more. I love music and dont want to see it go the same way as other things I used to enjoy like Pogs, Tazos and Pokemon cards.

People being able to listen to music for free should be banned. I do my bit by making sure all my windows and doors are securely shut when I’m listening to music at home, so theres not a chance someone walking past can stop for a free listen.

When I go to nightclubs/bars, I take my mp3 player and listen to music Ive actually paid money for, rather than something Im effectively stealing.

Mr Taylforth – I salute you in your fight against organised crime.

I’ve decided to stop singing, even when I’m on my own.

i refuse to watch films in schools, prisons, hopsitals and oilrigs. i don’t want to be responsible for the sex trafficking of drug mule terrorists.

Someone I might know might have came back from Iraq with his kit bag full of dodgy DVDs bought off the locals. I suspect he helped fund the nightly mortar attack. Allegedly.

i don’t want to be responsible for the sex fuelling of drugged mute traffic officers.

Here, here Phil.

Criminal Diversifier. A phrase I read years ago in a study on the drugs trade, basicaly if you are an ocg you’ll exploit all criminal oppurtunities to make money. So you may be a heroin trafficker and not produce the dvd’s but you may bankroll someone who is in that trade or members of your ocg may do this as a sideline, you may “tax” someone involved in vat fraud, you may take funny money in exchange for drugs if there’s a quid to be made you’ll get involved in some way. Years ago PIRA were supposedly behind running fruit machines and video poker machines in pubs in the UK – diversification. Sometimes these activities will be used to bankroll activities with a large start up capital requirment such as drugs trafficking

Mr Taylforth – I salute you in your fight against organised crime.

I’ve decided to stop singing, even when I’m on my own.

Everyone should do their bit.

The way I see it is singing whilst on your own is probably acceptable (if you can bare to listen to it) but its also a huge waste of a potential money maker. People shouldnt be wasting time creating free music when they could be selling it, keeping music alive.

The way I see it is singing whilst on your own is probably acceptable

I took the decision that I needed a PRS licence and duly bought one – I have it around my neck on a lanyard

I’ve decided to stop singing, even when I’m on my own.

I won’t even THINK about a tune, otherwise the voices in my head might overhear me.

Serious organised crime…

I’m now deeply concerned about family and friends who sing to their children. I don’t want my neices to grow up without their mummies.

I’m also worried about how my sisters may be diversifying. One of them has just obtained an allotment with a green house… should I report her?

Maybe I’ll examine her facebook for any coded messages first.

The last comment on that poster back there is pretty critical, TBH.

I like movies. I like owning movies. Despite having the means to download more films than I could realistically watch in my own lifetime, I still buy films. I have two Ikea bookcases rammed full of shop-bought films and box sets (and another full of CDs) as well as cardboard boxes full of video cassettes upstairs. We have a LoveFilm subscription and a Spotify premium subscription.

Two things,

1) They can trot out all the statistics they like about loss of sales due to piracy, but the simple fact is that I cannot buy any more media than I already do. I can’t afford it. The relationship between pirated films and lost revenue is not 1:1 and it’s disingenuous to suggest that it is. People who pirate films wouldn’t run out and drop twenty quid a pop on all the films they’ve copied if they suddenly couldn’t rip them any more; they’d simply watch fewer movies.

2) Time was, you copied a film and it was barely watchable anyway. These days it’s reached a point where a ripped copy can be a better viewing experience than the original. I’ve downloaded missed TV show episodes ‘illegally’ before now because doing it legitimately proved such a ballache. Eg, I tried to get an episode of Dancing on Ice (or something similar) from a couple of nights previous for my other half to watch; I spent two hours trying to get it down over iPlayer and streaming from my PC to the TV before throwing in the towel and torrenting it. Compared to the official version, the torrent ws DRM free (so could be streamed to the Xbox without extensive frigging about), higher resolution, surround sound, and not going to disappear without warning in a fortnight (cos heaven forbid that I might want to watch half a dozen ice-skating ponces in three weeks’ time, presumably no-one at the BBC ever goes on holiday).

Every time I have to sit through mandatory warnings, enforced trailers, or restrictions on how, where and when I watch something that I’ve just paid for, gods damn it, my bottom hurts. You’re not helping yourselves guys, I try to do things the official way and I get stiffed. Meet me halfway here?

Nightmare. I’ve just realised my life is actually very similar to Steve McDonalds (Coronation Street star). I dont know what to do, I’m living out copyright infrigement.

DT – Quick! You need to go and kill Craig Charles before they put it in your script.

Kilo is more or less right with the tedious, undramatic truth. Organised criminal activity doesn’t just take place in one trade, it takes place in lots of trades/goods/services. If you establish a manufacturing and distribution mechanism (network) for one product that’s expensive because it’s illegal, then it’s easier to piggyback other products onto the same network. But in a way that’s a bit like saying buying apples supports the USB dongle trade because Aldi and Eddie Stobart use the same distribution and retail network for both.

I don’t know whether it exists in the UK in the same way (perhaps with dodgy tobacco) but in parts of the US there is a nexus between slave labour, people trafficking* and DVD pirating because smuggled people are forced to distribute and sell pirate DVDs in order to pay off their smuggling fees. (Prostitution too). But you might also say that fast food sustains people trafficking because some people are forced to work in fast food places to pay off their debts.

Ultimately, it’s just like the rest of capitalism – everything is connected with everything else.

* a very difficult phrase that can also take away the agency of the people being “trafficked”

You need to go and kill Craig Charles before they put it in your script.

Aw, don’t do that, I’m waiting for the next series of Red Dwarf.

smuggled people are forced to distribute and sell pirate DVDs in order to pay off their smuggling fees

Thank you for providing the obvious answer. This point here (and I believe you’re right) actually means that people trafficking is funding video piracy?

I don’t like copyright theft but I do like those cheaky scamps… I just don’t know what to do anymore…

I don’t know whether it exists in the UK in the same way (perhaps with dodgy tobacco) but in parts of the US there is a nexus between slave labour, people trafficking* and DVD pirating because smuggled people are forced to distribute and sell pirate DVDs in order to pay off their smuggling fees. (Prostitution too).

Does anyone actually buy pirated DVDs any more though? Where I come from we have these things called ‘the internet’ and ‘bit torrent’. 🙂

I use LoveFilm for most of my DVD watching but there is sometimes the odd thing I can’t get or don’t want to wait for. If it’s good I will usually get the proper DVD at some point anyway.

I have two Ikea bookcases rammed full of shop-bought films and box sets

If you stopped buying and started downloading you could probably afford better furniture. 😉

This point here (and I believe you’re right) actually means that people trafficking is funding video piracy?

Well, I dunno, really…funding is a difficult word – perhaps it’s more true to say that the piracy and people trafficking industries have a symbiotic relationship. But then again so do the construction, bar work, office cleaning etc industries…

Does anyone actually buy pirated DVDs any more though? Where I come from we have these things called ‘the internet’ and ‘bit torrent’.

Yes, people still buy pirated DVDs. You see them being sold in the street/on trains/in dodgy corner shops in NYC and I’ve seen guys at Brick Lane and going from table to table in cafes in London selling them.

You can be snooty about it but not everyone is as technologically sophisticated as you. A lot of people can’t afford relatively expensive computers and internet connections. A lot of other people (me included) don’t know how to work torrents. Others (me included) are scared of getting done for using torrents (my in-laws were one of the people that got done for file sharing back in the Kazaa days and paid thoosands to get out of it). And a lot of other people just can’t be bothered to learn.

😀

If you stopped buying and started downloading you could probably afford better furniture

You can go right off people, you know.

(-:

How to do a piracy warning correctly:

(double post, ignore)

When I go to nightclubs/bars, I take my mp3 player and listen to music Ive actually paid money for, rather than something Im effectively stealing

really? as soon as i set foot in a nightclub or bar playing music, i whip out my mobile and phone my landline where my answering machine records it all. then, next day, i play the answerphone message into a portable cassette recorder that i got for my 12th birthday. i now have hundreds of free “mix tapes” like all the young ones do nowadays.

mobile phone charges? now there’s a rip off i can tell you, i’m ging to write into the daily mail about my latest bill. or get kaesae to do it for me.

When I go to nightclubs/bars, I take my mp3 player and listen to music Ive actually paid money for, rather than something Im effectively stealing.

I know you were joking, but nightclubs have to have a PRS license, and the money from that is meant to go to the artists. In theory I think places are meant to keep a record of what is played, and submit it to the PRS, but that very rarely happens.

come to think of it, if video piracy funds people trafficingking, why not look at some efficiency savings? Link both, so that instead of buying £3 dodgy dvds, the trafficked people could be used to stage accurate recreations of the videos. being street trheatre is much more right on and guardian-acceptable than working as a kitchen slave, as well as allowing the poor mites some dignity and creative expressionism

BigButSlimmerBloke – that is genius! You should get a medal or something.

I want to see some traffickeded humans perform Human Traffic. This will allow diversification into drug muleing at the very same time.

Win,win,win.

For increased ironing, get them to perform scenes from the popular TV series on trafficking, Traffic[/url].