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How To Stop Piracy: Raid CD-R Moguls
An anonymous reader writes "In what appears to be a not-so-legal move, Mexico's equivalent of the RIAA used federal police to raid the installations of Grupo Mekong, responsible for 200 of the 400 million virgin CDs imported each year, accusing them to be "capos" of the Piracy bussiness in Mexico.
What is the rationale? Record companies buy only 20% of Mekong merchandise, so the other 80% must be going to pirates! Yeah, Never mind computer users ,independent labels or other legal uses.
You can see the article here but what amazes me is the behaviour! What will the next step be? Raid the truck companies who deliver the CDs? "
They are giving the truck manufacturers all the ammunition they need to make trucks.
Trucks give these so-called truck companies the very tools needed to have a truck company, which provides a perfect cocktail for the CD-R retailers to get their greedy, dishonest hands on the product.
What makes a man want to be a mouse? (Python's Flying Circus)
What will the next step be? Raid the truck companies who deliver the CDs?
... this leaves a lot of ambiguity and speculation. Also leaves you open to other probes.
;-)
Well don'tdoubt it; anything that would constitute probable cause will lead them there. Anything that is touched by the merchandise is evidence. The harsh way to look at it but now that they have access to an area they will look for anything else that might be "wrong". That is basic investigation work. Sure that is not your main focus BUT you are also told to look for anything else, so
It is nice to see that they are working with other agencies though!
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
That's almost as bad as taking on the maufacturer's of the CD-R's themselves. It's a waste of resources.
I'm Mexican and while I really feel embarrased this kind of idiocy happens in my country, looking closer it happened because the authorities and legal system are extremely broken and stupid when it comes to understanding the nature of the crime that is being pursued in regards to piracy, and the record companies can abuse the situation.
/.ter should know, piracy IS a crime, only it's not related to theft, but to copyright infringement. This definition is blurred specifically by the record companies in Mexico so to be able to prompt the Police to take care of things as they command.
Funny, but I think this is the same case in almost ANY country. So, while it happened in Mexico because the system could be abused pretty easily, watch out for the same thing happening in other countries soon enough.
Before this happened, I had even seen commercials stating in a pretty explicit way some phrases equivalent to: "Piracy is theft". This shows it's not only a fault in our system, but because the record companies have the money and power to push their lame propaganda, laws and the perception of the crime can be shaped fairly easily by pulling the right strings.
As every educated
You see, there is a really strong music industry in Mexico, where we have literally hundreds of "artists" that sell their overrated, overpriced crap all over the continent, and predictably, this industry is controlled by the same RIAA companies we love to hate.
In fact, these events should come as no surprise, because in countries like mine, most people can't afford to pay the equivalent to US$15 for a single disk, priced as if it were an imported item, when it could be cheaper because the price markups don't need to be as high as in other countries, where everything from labor to land costs are more expensive. People DO buy and distribute bootlegs, there ARE criminals around here, but this is not the way to handle the situation. This is just a test of RIAA's power.
Companies that want to protect their profit margins and revenue sources at the expense of the user... Where do you see this happening next?
Mark my words, this is going to happen in another country and at a much bigger scale, sooner or later.
Now, who are the real "capos"?
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
Is it possible for the company who had its CDRs ripped off to sue the Mexican equivalent of RIAA into oblivion, i.e. to ... outbid the recording industry for justice?
Tech Public Policy stuff
How large has the CD industry become over the past few years? I'd guess it's already larger than the music industry. Just take a look at your local electronics store - I know several that have more shelf space devoted to CD readers, writers, blanks and other equipment than to music CDs.
So in essence, this is just one industry association trying to do as much damage on another industry as they can. Because they know that sooner or later, it'll all come down to "what is better for the economy" or "who has the larger bottom line".
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
( leaving out all legal uses of CD-R's including data, and other legal uses)
;)
I don't know what the laws in Mexico are, but generally speaking if they are anything like the U.S. (and that's likely because I *think* they have signed onto the Berne Convention), then there are far more legal uses for CD-Rs than data, including burning copyrighted music to them.
Remember that fair use allows me to take my legally purchased copyrighted music CDs, rip them to MP3 files, and then burn them to a "mix" CD. There's nothing illegal about that. Note that fair use does NOT allow me to take those same MP3s and share them with the world via a P2P network, however. (Not that that's stopping anyone.
My journal has hot
Nice to know your Google grepping skills are so well developed. The company, being Mexican, has a Spanish name. They are "Grupo Mekong, not "Mekong Group." Also, being a Mexican company, they are not terribly troubled by things that are "kind of a disturbing name to Americans in light of Vietnam fighting
Let's see
utter rubbish
>Notice the dateline is "City of Mexico." I imagine President Bush
>lives in the "House of White."
>
Well President Bush *IS* white and surrounds himself with neo-racists like Ashcoft and Lott....
In Brazil, there's something similar to that, but the message is "piracy is a crime". Here, a new CD costs around US$7.50 to US$10.00, but an equivalent pirate CD costs around US$2.85 (at least where I live). These pirate CDs are usually pressed bootlegs, but not always. Considering a single CD costs (in average) 15% of minimum monthly wage in Brazil, I think it's safe to assume CDs are way overpriced here. Sad to see bootleggers AND record companies get rich taking advantage of this situation. And copy-protected CDs are cropping up here too. :(
My neighbor's
I've been a long time reader of /. and even sometimes dabble in to see the replies of people, being a Mexican my attention was caught by this article, and more so by the replies. I'll try and give some more insight and correct some things.
1)We can't say "It happened in Mexico" because there are three different places called Mexico, one is the country, another is the state and a third one is the city, so Ciudad de Mexico is quite right.
2)Raided makes me think of swat teams jumping in from windows totting guns and helicopters flying overhead etc...(yes its your dammed media that makes me think this) an "arraigo" is actually just house arrest you...arraigo dosnt translate to raid TYVM.
3)A "Orden de cateo" is pretty much a search warrant which the officials didn't have while they searched through Grupo Mekong's stuff. It wasn't just the PGR that was in on this FYI also.
4)Mekong is under this supposedly because most of what they sell they sell to people that use this CDRs to burn copies of original stuff and sell them, so this compares as if in the U.S. Wal-Mart is investigated for selling the guns that the deppressed teen used to blast the heads off his classmates (what can I say I'm still fascinated by that stuff).
5)Mekong can account for every last piece of their merchandise with the required paperwork, the Officials cant account even for a search warrant.
6)Mekong believes the AMPROFON and APDIF (yes pretty much the mexican RIAA) is behind this, the same way it is in other countries.
7)Yes alot of mexican cops are looking for a bribe, they have a shitty salary and they dont ask for much 20-50 pesos (2 to 5 dollars) and theyll leave ya be, but it ain't everywhere and lets not compare Mexico's Police Force with the U.S. we ain't the racists ones, so there.
8)We're not a third world country you .... were a developing 2nd world country.
9)I know I had more but I just forgot.
Puh-lease don't make like Mexico is a shitty country, every country is shitty and we can debate upon that any freakin day of the week, and twice on sunday.
NOPE a real patriot is both intelligent and a student of history, past and reasonably current. A real patriot is able to recognize patterns of deceit and apply them to current events. A real patriot learns from his own and other country's past actions and learns to not keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again. A real patriot can look at a scam, see it for a scam, recognize scams from the past, see where the junta has used scams in the past, and is brave and smart enough to say NO, NEVER AGAIN! A real patriot isn't hungup on political parties and rhetoric, a real patriot is not a member of some fanboy cult over some "leader" or "political party" and stays blind to their misdeeds in the past, a real patriot LOOKS at what individuals do as compared to what they say, and is able to figure out reality rather than have it dictated to them. A real patriot doesn't use the "nuhremberg defense" to excuse illegal actions. A real patriot has the courage to NOT follow illegal orders and to speak out when they see criminality in their ranks and in their superiors actions in the government.
The world has tried the lock step goose stepping methods, it doesn't work, it's heinous and criminal. Real patriots have the courage to actually follow their oaths, and not just BLINDLY follow orders. A real patriot will do these things, false patriots full of bravado and lacking intelligence will follow the old ways that lead to "sieg heil" actions.
Learn from history or be destined to repeat it, you have a binary choice there.
But it's still shooting the messenger. And there's some question in my mind as to whether a seller even has a *right* to know what his products are used for. Not to mention that the whole thing is a rather well-greased slope. If I buy a truckload of fertilizer and a tank of diesel, do I plan to make a bomb or run my tractor and fertilize my fields? Should I be judged "likely of guilt" in advance??
In fact -- looks like we ought to add a new verdict: no longer will someone be merely "guilty" or "innocent". The new option, in the name of crime prevention at any cost, will be "preemptively guilty".
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?