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MPAA Under Investigation for Illegal NYPD Payoffs
An anonymous reader writes "The New York Post is reporting that two NYPD officers are being investigated for taking illegal payoffs from the MPAA for busting sellers of pirated DVDs. According to the article, MPAA investigators would tell the cops where pirated movies were being sold, which is perfectly legal, but, after the bust, they'd give them several hundred dollars in gratuities, which is illegal. Naturally, the MPAA denies all of this."
I don't know who's worse: people paying cops to enforce the law, or cops that won't enforce it unless you pay them extra.
Telemarketer called you; you're on the do not call list?
click here
So where do you draw the line between tipping an officer for doing you a "favor" and bribing him to do you a "favor"?
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Then you get a situation where whoever pays the cops the most gets the most justice.
We already have a problem with police going after more high profile crimes involving a lot of money, rather than going after less high profile crimes which involve less money but more harm to the individual.
For example, if a little old lady is scammed out of $10,000 by a guy who says he will fix her leaking roof, that causes her a lot of harm.
In contrast, if someone distributes music online and costs the music industry $100,000, which is highly unlikely, the police will go after those guys with more vigor, even though the music industry won't feel the sting of that guy's actions much if at all.
Increase Sales
Reduce Cost
The MPAA considers piracy to be a "cost" that they wish to control, to assist their bottom line.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
There's a reason there's a law called the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
A true Republican president would be fighting against the trusts, unlike the corporate whore who occupies the White House.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Though when I'm in the US I do try to remember that the waiters really are serfs and if I don't tip they'll starve. What a lovely system you guys have...
--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
No they're not. Candy costs about 55 cents a bar now, when it used to be about 33 cents when I was a kid. Does this mean if I were to shoplift a candy bar, it's the store's fault? Or the candy manufacturer?
While I'm certainly not defending the MPAA's actions or saying that things are hunky dory, their shitty actions are not a reasonable justification to steal.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Yeah! And when the cops let murderers, armed robbers and rapists run amok beacause busting simple copyright infringers pays a kickback, that's cool too. After all, you get free bandwidth! ;b
How ya like dat?
Yeah well thost Babylon 5 sets cost just pennies to manufacture. The shows were already produced, so no production costs went into making them for the DVD. A few special features cost very little: a cameraman might cost $20/hour and the interviewees are probably not paid at all, or maybe a couple hundred bucks. There is more profit to be made on TV show sets because production costs are nearly zero and costs are still high.
So, tell me again why DVDs cost as much as they do? Ah yes, what the market will bare. Looks like a significant portion of the market has decided that prices are too high.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Now, I've been on mass protests. Except I was fortunate to do so in a free country, Britain. I marched with several hundred thousand people about a topic I must admit I've changed my mind on since in the early nineties. And been with several thousand people protesting on another issue at roughly the same period.
Unlike America, I wasn't arrested or under threat of arrest and the authorities cooperated with the protest and its organizers. In Britain, the right to protest is not considered something to be stamped upon. Riots are rare because the tactics designed to provoke them are rarely if ever used by British law enforcement. You don't, for example, as is common in the US, herd protesters into a closed area, surround them, and then order them to disperse or be arrested.
In most free countries, the right to protest isn't dismissed as easily as you do:
We don't consider extreme limitations on the right to protest compatable with freedom. Indeed, the day law enforcement appears to be deliberately doing what it can to stir up trouble, the day it clearly starts making arbitrary arrests, et al, is probably the day the government doing this work finds itself likely to be thrown out. We don't do that kind of thing. We don't tolerate it. And we find it bizarre the country whose countrymen usually pride themselves on the degree of Freedom they have consider their right to start a business and then fire employees for what they do in their spare time as more important than the right to protest.Not that I'm saying all Americans are like you. I know plenty that aren't, right and left. But I'm surprised that, generally, you don't get the kind of backlash against Fidel Castro clones in local government in the US as you do in other western democracies. Maybe, because you, as citizens against a government, haven't had to fight for basic democratic freedoms for the last 250 years, many of you have forgotten how important they are.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
"Surely the can't expect that their raids of arrests will provide them with more sales."
If I understand your claim, I think you're wrong.
Yes, I think that they do in fact think that when people buy bootleg copies of DVD's that they don't buy legit copies of the DVD's, so shutting down illegal manufacturers (i.e. factories that manufacture DVD's that they don't pay royalties on, and street vendors who burn DVD-R's and don't pay royalties) they reduce the supply of bootlegs and thus increase sales of legit DVD's.
Is there something there that you disagree with?
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
The MPAA and RIAA are different the way the Mafia and the Yakuza are different.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.