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MPAA training Dogs to Sniff Out DVDs
LandownEyes writes "The dogs, Lucky and Flo, faced their first test at the FedEx UK hub at Stansted Airport.
"FedEx was glad to assist in Lucky and Flo's first live test in a working situation. They were amazingly successful at identifying packages containing DVDs, which were opened and checked by HM Customs' representatives. While all were legitimate shipments on the day, our message to anyone thinking about shipping counterfeit DVDs through the FedEx network is simple: you're going to get caught."
Kinda makes me thing twice about shipping anything through FedEX. Seriously, this is like training drug dogs to find plastic bags."
I wonder what would happen if I were to ship a burned DVD with Linux on it instead.
So what happens when they find that homemade video a friend is sending you from their trip overseas?
Unless they decide to actually play every DVD, or open the packaging to see what inside a case, how are they going to know?
All a pirate would have to do is ship them in unmarked cases, or ones marked "Vacation video" and mail them to the US, where their partner opens them up and puts them in the final packing material.
Sounds like a giant waste of time to me. And for what? DVD's. We can't even be bothered to search all of the crates coming into our ports, but hell, the MPAA has enough time and money to look for fake fucking DVD's.
Morons.
Of course, if the dogs were trained to attack when they found this particular illegal substance...
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
Is it any wonder that of all the illegal products that can be shipped through the mail, the ones with the largest number of political lobbyists are getting special measures to ensure they're legitimate? This is really a case of money being used to influence politics. This is a huge invasion of privacy, and a nonsensical one at that. There's no way for these dogs to differentiate between legitimate and copied DVD's, and illegal DVD copies and legal DVD copies. Another case of the RIAA treating customers as the enemy. Makes me have no pity for them when they complain about being stolen from. Maybe if they gave their customers (you know, the people paying them) a little respect they might be able to get some sympathy and work with people to solve this problem. As it is, I think they're just contributing to it.
I've always pictured the color of OS zealotry as a sort of bright flamingo pinkish hue
By what authority does the MPAA have to even do this? They are a PRESSURE GROUP, not government. They are NOT THE COPS, they are NOT federal agents.
Or is this just another example of the corporations saying "JUMP!" and the government saying "how high?"
I would be interested to know how the dog distinguishes between a DVD and any other mailed product which contains plastic wrapping. Perhaps they are operating on the assumption that plastic wrapping materials of the type used to shrink wrap DVDs are not common in other types of mail. One also wonders how much of a dent this will actually make in the amount counterfeit DVDs and movie piracy in general. It was my understanding that bootleggers generally sell on the street, at swap meets, and other spontaneous social gatherings where the counterfeit goods are priced as impulse purchases at 1-2 dollars apiece. The rest are probably file sharing downloads of DVD rips to divx and such so how many bootleg DVDs, not orders from Amazon.com or NetFlix, are actually making their way through the mail system? It is probably insignificant.
Now wait a second. This is a test and they are opening real people's packages. WTF? (FTW?) I didn't know that shipping plastic optical media was a crime anywhere. Sure it's "customs" that's actually opening the packages, but the fact that it's plastic optical media is not probable cause. How many false positives have they had? Is it worth pissing off that many FedEx customers for the occasional actually pirated media (of which they've found zero)?
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
What if you're FedEx'ing a home movie of your child's birth (including states of undress of the mother) to your mother-in-law who couldn't be there? Would the FedEx personnel be gawking at that?
It's analogous to the P2P crackdowns where the assumption is that consumers are incapable of authoring content and only Big Media can.
And, yes, I'm a bit surprised and quite alarmed that the tampering laws that apply to U.S. mail do not apply to FedEx.
I doubt FedEx is going to let them open some little envelope from you to your grand-mother. I doubt MPAA is going to effort or cost of training dogs to catch you sending a pirated movie to her, either.
FTFA: "These DVDs are often smuggled by criminal networks involved in large scale piracy operations from around the world."
If there's some big shipment labelled as "computer monitors", and the dogs pick up a scent, they're probably going to want to know if it really is monitors, or thousands of pirated DVDs.
Do I smell a transition to DivX/XviD based CDs. Or just a lot of flash media which happens to have DivX/XviD content encoded on a one time pad?
Seriously, if they make possesion of a DVD tantamount to piracy, force people to show all of their DVDs including the naughty ones, they will simply force a transition to other less controllable physical media. Couple that with the nascent clusterfsck which HD-DVD and BluRay is becoming and you have a total loss of control over media and distribution which is the ony justification for the MPAA!
As the title says, I honestly doubt this is legal in the US. The mere existance of a DVD doesn't constitute probable cause.
I don't recall signing any contract with FedEx that says they can search my goods, but even if I did the Constitution trumps that. I haven't got a problem with them opening it for technical reasons (repacking a mangled package, perhaps, which I'd accept gladly), but opening them for the purposes of determing if you've broken some law probably won't pass 4th Amendment muster.
As a positive example, while I'm not a fan of the drug war, a trained drug dog identifying a package as containing an illegal drug would probably be probable cause, because whatever small quantity of legal cocaine in the country (for research), if any, is unlikely to be sent through FedEx. But the mere existance of a DVD is nowhere near probable cause by any reasonable standard; I can't imagine that anything but the vast majority of optical media going through Fedex is perfectly legal.
However, my guess is the MPAA knows this, and this is a publicity stunt only.
(Finally, I'm not a dog, but I wouldn't be surprised they're not smelling DVDs so much as the packaging they usually come in, which has that New Plastic smell so strongly a human might be able to do this. If so, this is almost funny, because they'll never come up with the illegal DVDs that way. It'd depend on the training, and we don't have enough data to be sure either way.)
FedEx was glad to help out on the test, I'm sure, but there's no way FedEx is going to let these dogs sniff every package.
I worked at a FedEx sort facility as a package handler for a few months, and I'll tell you right now, those packages sit still for a total of 5 seconds once those trailers are opened. They go from the trailer to the belt, to the package handler, to the drivers, in the truck and out the door. No drivers are going to stand there and let a dog sniff out every package for a potential DVDs, especially if they have an appointment delivery to keep.
I can remember mornings when trailers were late in getting to the terminal by five minutes and those drivers were whining so much it wasn't even funny. Now, I suppose they could be sniffed at some other point, but any delay will smear FedEx's "The World on Time" image. They're not going to be willing to do that, nor any other shipping company.
Besides, if they do cooperate, just ship it through the mail, or UPS, or DHL.
Not that I condone in any way the illegal distribution of copied movies.
Not that I condone the invasion of privacy either.
It's just a lose-lose situation all around.
The urge, yes. But the history of the war on drugs has shown the legal system to not find those kind of pranks as funny as we do.
Everything will be taken away from you.
You know, to some degree, I do agree with you but I was being literal with the name of the organization, which is "Federation Against Copyright Theft".
4 495&Page=1&pagePos=2
Snort - FACT - yeah. Anyway, if you look up "Copyright Theft" on google (with quotes), it has very few hits (1500). I'm just remarking that it's an odd and ironic term, as no actual "copyrights" are being stolen.
Actual "copyright theft" is what you can argue the RIAA does against some unsuspecting artists (with their contracts in a way) or what faceless unscrupulous organizations do to others:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1
That's why when people copy, share, pirate - I prefer copyright infringement - it's more technical and says exactly what one did, not a confused term like "copyright theft." Unless you are telling me that someone stole sony's copyrights and are now legally licensing the content in their own name?
I think the most effective strategy would be to burn actual movies whose copyright has expired from archive.org and labeling them something like btlegmovrip3241.avi. Imagine how much fun they would have trying to determine the copyright status of all these movies.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
That would be very interesting, putting a backdoor trojan on a dvd and adding an autorun.inf. Reminds me of a post someone made about the CEH 312-50 study disc on a pirate website.
Then again, would shipping a DVD loaded with trojans and backdoor programs count as transporting a weapon of mass (data) destruction?
They're planning on opening fedex packages up which they believe to contain DVDs without any other reason to suspect that illegal copies of a DVD is being mailed? I feel that's kind of wrong, for someone to go through my mail or packages just because I ordered some DVDs online (maybe even foreign DVDs I can't get in the states).
Doesn't the law require them to actually have a high probability of some offence before they're allowed to open packages to check its contents.
HD Trailers
"Seriously, this is like training drug dogs to find plastic bags."
Excellent analogy that punches through the clouds that the "Terror War" have cast on our sense of personal violation by the state.
Corporate globalism, with no basis in justice or recognition of any rights beyond corporate property, means everyone is guilty until proven not liable by a corporate lawyer. Accusation = proof, just like medieval faith governments.
--
make install -not war
On the one hand, you're saying that shippers always comply with the law w.r.t. inspecting packages. On the other hand, you're saying that they can legally inspect any package they choose for any reason. That second point would seem to make the first moot. Anyway, it wasn't USPS or DHL or UPS that participated in this "test"; it was FedEx. FedEx's customers have to wonder why FedEx would be so eager to aid in these fanatical (and potentially very intrusive) inspections.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
Surely a bulk shipment of DVD/CD media will show up on X-ray machinery already in use? The X-ray machine doesn't need food or shelter, won't crap on the floor, and you already have trained operators. What have they gained here?
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
I know this from...a trainer, we'll leave it at that. They have ways to make dogs indicate a "hit", using body language or subtle hand movements, etc., that part varies. They use that "technique" all the time when they want to search a car for instance even when the dog doesn't have a legit "hit". Just one of the many ways they circumvent the real laws. Here's another, carrying a "throw away". They will have access to a confiscated firearm, if involved in "an unfortunate shooting when the perp made a threatening movement" they can stick the gun in his dead hands.
They do stuff like that all the time.
Anyway, I don't have a big problem with them finding legitimate counterfeit disks, indications of mass piracy for profit. There's an easier solution, a few nations specialise in that trade, the authorities know who they are. Stop trade with them, cut it off.
The US and UK have borked their manufacturing base so much now through "globalism and wonderful 'free' trade" that they can't do that very effectively.
The movie industry could cut "piracy" off overnight, they choose not to. Retail sell disks for a few dollars, which they could do. They would rather bitch, get new laws, and insist on a hugely jacked up artificial price that in no way reflects costs and a reasonable profit margin. They still want as much for a new release on disk as they charged for a new release on tape 10-15 years ago. I mean, c'mon now, it is MUCH cheaper to duplicate movies now, and the transportation/warehouse, etc costs are much lower, and cost of movie production has only gone up a little, nothing like what these prices represent compared to their past cost of actual physical production.
In short, they have brainwashed themselves into believing their own bullshit. They honestly believe that 20 or 25 bucks for a quarter disk is a deal to the drooling masses. At three bucks they would sell BILLIONS of freaking disks. 3$ is an impulse item charge, people would be grabbing handfuls of them, not even bothering with most file trading or looking up "CD Leroy" at the flea market.
People are just not that stupid or naieve about costs anymore, not when EVERYONE knows how cheap it is to make dupes. Cost of movie production today-not a lot different from ten years ago. It has gone up some, but not that much. They refuse to drop prices on their offerings though, flat out refuse. All they want is lock on advanced tech for themselves, they want you to keep paying like it's 1990 or something. THAT is what wrong with their current business model and why piracy and file sharing is so common now. People have little moral qualms over shafting the mafia if it looks like they can get away with it, and that's all the **AAs are, mafia goons masquerading as businessmen. The **AAs-the companies they represent-screw the talent, screw the customer, and screw each other, it is one of the most shameless corrupt and bogus industries out there.
It's a cartel,and if that NY prosecutor always in the news wants to investigate price fixing,collusion, etc, he could start there with the DVD movie selling industry.
Someone needs to smack the Hollywood dweebs with the reality cluestick and introduce them to the concept of "volume sales" and how "net" is more important than 'gross" and how "serve your customer" is a better idea than "gouge-shaft-screw and prosecute" your customer.
They are so used to being in a scumbag industry and dealing with fellow scumbags and being around scumbags all day long they just ass-ume everyone is like that. And they wonder why people have so little respect for them or could give a care about their profits now.
6.1 billion loss
:)
I knew my giganews subscription was going to a good cause
honestly though... it's really because they are just whining about everyone else making money with Itunes and other digital delivery services. Working at a electronics store, I never have anyone come up to me and ask, "where do I find the cd-players?". to be honest, I can't remember a single sale where a cd-player was involved. BTW, I sell about 10 or more MP3 players each day.
I should send a box of loose blank DVD's with 'Screw you MPAA' written on them for their next photo-op on finding dvd's.
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
from the MPAA press release:
A label isn't "digital rights management"...
Please help metamoderate.
You know those X-Ray things that your laptop has to go through at airport security?
Have you ever seen a CD/DVD in the microwave? I realize it's a different energy... but I'll bet that a case of 1000s of DVDs is going to look suspcious enough on X-Ray to give them a perfectly legit reason to open the case; that is, if they can't immediately tell that they're DVDs.
Sorry, I don't know any facts here... they do use X-Ray on international FedEx packages, don't they? Wouldn't a DVD show up on it?
To be perfectly honest, I've never heard of these giant pirating rings in the US. That doesn't mean they're not there, but... it seems like the MPAA is trying to get the public to associate pirating with the same subcutlure as drugs. Everyone's nailed the coffin shut on the practicality with this. Why else would they resort to being so eccentric? Desperate, even.
And think of the poor dogs! Instead of enjoying the good life being someone's pet, or saving peoples' lives, or being attack hounds, they catch... movie bootleggers. What a life! Hehe.
While all were legitimate shipments on the day
Translation: physical piracy really doesn't happen much.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
How can this even be legal? What bone head brainless piece of shit at FedEx allowed the MPAA to do this? If I ship a DVD to some one I expect it to only be opened by one person, the recipient. This would be like the RIAA going to the post office and opening everyones mail looking for lyrics. Un fucking believable! Well, the MPAA has pushed me into buying even FEWER DVDs this year.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
Why do you think it is legal to attempt to interfere with and impede the operations of the US Customs?
Clearly you've missed a step in your logic - the step which assumes it is somehow illegal to ship a DVD full of random and meaningless data. There should be no problem with this.
If doing such a harmless and legal thing would somehow "interfere with" the US Customs, then the US Customs should put themselves onto the right side of the law. If there is any problem, it is a problem on the part of Customs.
The thing with "rights" is that if you don't use them, you lose them.
Why do so few question how MPAA can have these legal powers to train dogs to find DVD discs and get them to open them to check if they were pirated? When there's apparently no good legal ground for it (the DVD's were all legal). How much of a police *are* these guys anyway?
In USA, can anyone basically gain police powers if there's a suspicion for crime? Wait, scratch that. Can anyone basically gain police powers when ther's NO suspicion for crime?
MPAA isn't even a government body. It seems to surely be an organization that unifies the government, police, and media industry though. I just wonder how the heck they do it and have so few complain. This is obviously not just a concern for the pirates, but for anyone who wonders what a basic organization can and can not do even without suspicions of crime.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
You can say you're shipping a one time pad for future communications.
While all were legitimate shipments on the day
...unless it's just a form of power-play. "See, you peons, we can stick our noses in your luggage and shipments just like the FBI can. We're all-powerful. Bow to us."
Translation: physical piracy really doesn't happen much.
Mod parent up. He hit the nail right on. MPAA picked a random day at FedEX, picked a bunch of packages with DVD's and found nothing.
I'd have kept my mouth shut in their place until I found something. Would've made much better propaganda. This way it just sounds idiotic. "We have this new great way of detecting recordable DVD's in shipping. It turns out it's useless, but we have it."
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
There's been great concern and priority put to training dogs to sniff out drugs, bombs, weapons and illegal immigrants. I've heard CNN doom and gloom reports over the years concerning efficiency of the above activities being detected. In light of such "concerns" that would threaten a shipping network, FedEx train dogs to detect DVD's.
The "press release" pointed out the DVD's found were all in legal packaging. Message is clear alright, FedEx could have invested in x-ray equipment instead. So FedEx are going to tear apart every package sniffed out to contain DVD's and hold up these shipments to figure out which are MPAA approved? Must have taken many snausages to get Flo & Lucky to additionally detect region codes.
Next, I wonder how long it would take and how much money FedEx can additionally waste to train Flo and Lucky to sniff out counterfeit Rolex watches?
Put a tiny label somewhere on the CD saying "Malware and virus samples for antivirus research purposes" in a 1.5 point font, virtually hidden by the big 16-point one with "Lesbian Schoolgirls" on it. Then it becomes their fault for putting it into the drive, because as any lawyer will tell you, you should always read the small print.
I am one of those evil English teachers in Asia that my grandparent talks of :) I prefer to buy the legit disks as the cheap copies are unwatchable. A legal copy of a film will cost 5 pounds which is a lot cheaper than back home and a copy will cost a fifth of that but as I will not enjoy watching it there is no real saving. As for the grandparents comment about arrest, if I send a legal copy to someone they get arrested??? Who would you like to get rid of next?
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
I suggest everyone does as I did, and writes to Fedex via the website to protest.
If they are in fact allowing a private commercial interest to open up the packages of unconsenting customers, they deserve a full boycott.
There are other good alternatives to Fedex.
I wonder, do the dogs give a stronger reaction to movies like Gigli, Waterworld, or The Postman? Hell, you don't need dogs -- I could smell those stinkers a mile away.
Just goes to show to how great a degree private industry and big corporations have this administration in their back pocket. I mean, think of the cost and expense of training these dogs, the man-hours involved, the delay of legitimate shipments, the questionable nature of the searches, and all at the behest of a PRIVATE industry trade group. It boggles the mind.
All the more imperative that the master geeks get cracking on that Star Trek Transporter techonology, so you can beam your contraband directly to the recipient.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
I do not think those jokes mean what you think they mean.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
With respect to DVD pricing and piracy... if you can find a double-sided DVD-R at a reasonable price, I'd like to know where, the pricing I've seen is in the >$5 range. It's either that or pick and choose tracks using DVD-shrink... while the disk may be 25 cents, my time is worth something.
While you may not like DVD pricing, DVD piracy is NOT a serious problem in the USA because DVD movies, unlike music CDs just aren't all that expensive if you don't insist on movies newly released on DVD.
The hysteria about piracy is mainly so the movie industry can plug all Internet distribution channels they don't control, in order to freeze independents out.
They know as well as we do that we're only a few years away from making movies technically equivalent to current Hollywood product (NO, I DON'T MEAN LOTR, that's another few years) on conventional desktop PCs.
It's about control. They want to be able to say to people who want to sell movies to the public "Do it our way or not at all."
Any resemblance between this and the record industry, of course, is purely coincidental.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Besides, if no prints are found on the ammo, or on the rest of the gun, then... Then someone was careful about getting prints on their illegal firearm, that doesn't at all indicate the officer did it.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I do know this one to be utter BS, at least where there is at least one honest forensic investigator.
That's a big "if".
I'm not saying there are none, but some aren't honest. Too many, in fact. Try not to forget that.
You can't take the sky from me...
Most places don't have forensic investigators. I was just reading about how many juries are throwing cases because the police didn't use all the latest stuff as seen on CSI and Law & Order. The prosecuter in the interview seemed to think this was a bad thing. If I were on a jury, I'd want as much information as possible.
Many people are convicted on eyewitness testimony alone. If that eyewitness is a cop, well... Most small towns in American might as well have the judge, jury and executioner be the same person, because they think alike anyway.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
The problem isn't that these companies are 'trampling' over anyone's privacy rights. The problem is that most people have no idea what their rights really are, and just assume that anything they don't like violates those rights.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
And here is the real question. At what point in time did FedEx get the OK to open my mail? Is my mail shipping something that can only be illegal? Last time I checked, shipping cocaine is ALWAYS illegal. But shipping DVDs - does this mean that every time I send a DVD as a birthday gift, FedEx suddenly has MPAA (new name for the US government) permission to open my package?
If there was a line at rediculous with this **AA shit, this just blew the line away in it's dust.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Please tell me how we can "win" a war against an undeclared and unidentified enemy? How do you define an "end" to such a "war". Answer: You can't.
Face it, the "War on Terror" will NEVER end, just like the "War on Drugs". It is the perfect political tool. Do whatever you want and justify it based on the "war". And since the "war" never ends, you can do this forever.
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur