p2pnet - rss feed: MPAA in the Philippines
p2p news / p2pnet: Hollywood is boasting it was able to tie up 60 vehicles and nearly 500 people in a purely commercial "operation" in the Philippines.
Through their MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and its clone, the MPA, the Big Seven studios have managed to elevate prosaic counterfeiting activities which affect no one but them to the status of major crime. This, in turn, gives them an excuse to suborn national police and other scarce taxpayer funded resources in the name of the bottom line.
"On December 20, the Motion Picture Association and Optical Media Board (OMB), with backup from Philippines National Police officers, again raided the notorious Bartertrade Mall in Quiapo, Manila, serving 110 warrants and seizing 942,000 pirated optical discs valued at an estimated US$1.8 million," it says, going on:
"This week’s raid was part of the MPA’s ‘Operation Big Broom’ anti-piracy enforcement operations, scheduled to run through January 2006 in 14 countries and territories across the Asia-Pacific region."
December 21st, 2005 at 9:24 pm
I know what the MPAA can do with that “Big Broom.”
BTW, how much did it cost the Philippines National Police to enforce the whims of the MPAA? Though, in this case, it may be somewhat valid to fight the REAL (and only) piracy industry.
December 21st, 2005 at 10:22 pm
Using their numbers as truth, that turns out to be ~US$1.91 per disc ?! Those things are cheap
December 21st, 2005 at 10:36 pm
most of these asian countires could careless about copyright law i am sure the mpa lobbyed hard for this broom. In most asian countries when the police do raid markets like this the person gets a fine like a speeding ticket and is back the next day. the one exception to this would be hong kong.
December 22nd, 2005 at 7:39 am
No no no, you’re forgetting how the cartels count stuff. Each of those 942000 odd discs was probly “worth” the 1.8 million US.
Then again there was probly only 18,115 discs but because the burning equipment had “52X” labels on them, the mpaa multiplied the number of discs by 52.
December 22nd, 2005 at 2:18 pm
and the policeman whose offcial salary is not enough to eat will sell the confiscated disks, giving part of the money to the also underpaid coronel, whose salary is not enough to buy an automobile
they have a lot of practice doing this, with drugs
December 22nd, 2005 at 2:24 pm
“This, in turn, gives them an excuse to suborn national police and other scarce taxpayer funded resources in the name of the bottom line.”
You know, I’ve never seen this aspect of things mentioned aywhere else but on P2PNet.net
December 22nd, 2005 at 6:14 pm
That’s because it’s obvious.
December 26th, 2005 at 10:24 am
Raids like this are done on a regular basis, but are quite ineffectual. They are usually done for show so that the MPA and the cops can say they’ve been doing their job. In reality, all those places selling pirated movies and music will be back in less than 2 weeks’ time.
The real problem is the source of the piracy. Most of pirated movies and music come from organized crime groups like the Chinese Triad (Chinese mafia) that are so powerful that most people don’t want to go stand up to them.
So if the MPAA/RIAA really want to change the way things are, they’ll have to find a way to take down organized crime…
December 26th, 2005 at 12:04 pm
ha ha ha ha ha…..
December 26th, 2005 at 12:07 pm
My spouse is from the Philippines and this is absolutely true.
The police there make dirt for pay. They even have ripped
and tattered uniforms. Those disks will not be wasted, don’t
worry. ALL of the police and their families are listening to them
right now!
I guarantee it.
52 pecos = $1US currently
December 26th, 2005 at 12:09 pm
In the Philippines anyone with even some money can buy
their own police. You don’t pay for traffic tickets in court…
you pay right-there-and-then and off you go.
Usually very cheaply too.
Big music cartels can buy entire police departments there without even breaking their office petty-cash jars.
April 14th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Bwa ha ha. it’s been more than two years and unauthorized (aka “pirated”) copies are still flooding the streets. The mpaa is wasting its petty-cash.
September 30th, 2008 at 3:30 am
Most of the creative influences of our time came from pirated ideas.