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Film Piracy, Organized Crime and Terrorism

Posted by Soulskill on from the fair-and-balanced dept.

flip-flop writes "The RAND Corporation has just released a lengthy report titled "Film Piracy, Organized Crime, and Terrorism" which attempts to link all three. The authors suggest that organized crime might be financing itself in part through movie piracy (PDF) — and in three out of 14 of their international case studies, they claim that profits from piracy end up with suspected terrorist organizations. But now for the interesting part! Quote from the preface: 'The study was made possible by a grant from the Motion Picture Association (MPA).' Ah, what a surprise..." The RAND Corporation has made a video summary of the report as well. TorrentFreak has an article disputing some of the report's claims, focusing criticism on RAND's interchangeable use of the terms "piracy" and "counterfeiting" — the report deals with the physical distribution of DVDs, making only brief mention of digital downloads. The MPAA and others have barked up this tree before.

8 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. me thinks that RAND doth protest too much. by senorpoco · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Download Torrents, stamp out terrorism.

    1. Re:me thinks that RAND doth protest too much. by peragrin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      exactly. if you pirate movies are music make sure you get the online free version instead of the half price fake cd/dvd version.

      In fact Organized crime would most likely love to have online P2P stopped. their low prices can't beat free.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    2. Re:me thinks that RAND doth protest too much. by mdwh2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Indeed - by this reasoning, the Government should be promoting, and certainly not opposing, free downloading, as part of its War On Terrorrr. Surely, the threat of terrorism is far more serious than any alleged loss of a few sales? "If it saves just one life" etc :)

  2. Only one solution then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If something's available for less there's always someone who will buy it. The only solution therefore is to make this stuff available for free and starve the "terrorists" and "organised crime syndicates" of money. Anyone who opposes peer-to-peer networking supports terrorism.

  3. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  4. Re:speaking of interchangeble terms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Organized crime would most likely love to have online P2P stopped.

    Of course the MPAA would love that, they keep saying so every chance they get!

    I thought the MPAA was organized crime...

  5. Re:speaking of interchangeble terms by MrNaz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, the MPAA are a bunch of thugs.

    RAND corporation, however, a sickening organization that profiteers by preparing "research papers" that deliberately misrepresents facts for the purpose of twisting social and economic policy to serve the agendas of big lobby groups, is the worst kind of organized crime; the kind that has government backing.

    --
    I hate printers.
  6. Follow the money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The report says only what those who paid the RAND Corporation wanted it to say. The purpose of RAND is to try to hide the foolishness with intellectual argument.

    Next reports from RAND:

    Employees should agree that they are paid too much.

    Rich people are wonderful leaders, and should be allowed to do anything they want.

    The U.S. government's policy of killing people will bring peace.

    The failures of banks in the United States were completely unforeseeable. When Warren Buffett predicted problems in 2002, he was talking about something else.

    The U.S. government should buy more weapons. You never know when they will be needed.