UK Trains Dogs To Sniff Out Pirated DVDs.
When I first came across this Press Association news story, I was convinced it was a hoax. I didn't believe it, until I saw This Video for myself, from Sky news. (Fair warning, It's filled with obviously biased **AA friendly statistics, it's in Windows Media format, and they try and force you to watch it twice.) The Federation Against Copyright Theft or FACT, has arranged for a pair of black Labradors to be trained to sniff for pirated optical media. FACT works very closely with UK law enforcement in anti-piracy operations. The dogs were taken to a FedEx hub at an airport in Essex. A place where any of your own packages might be if you sent anything into or out of that area of England. The dogs were allowed to sniff out packages to identify those containing DVDs."This is the first time dogs have been used anywhere in the world to search for counterfeit DVDs and the results were amazing. With theco-operation and assistance of FedEx and Customs we were able to properly test the dogs in a live situation and prove that they can work in a busy working environment." said the director of FACT.
FACT claims to have trained the dogs, Flo and Lucky, to sniff out counterfeit DVDs. But in truth there is no way for for a dog to tell a legit copy of Big Momma's House 2 from a pirated one. That means that the dogs, if deployed at a FedEx Hub or customs station, would identify every package containing DVDs. Which would then have to be opened and searched by trained personnel. So whether you are a multimillion dollar Chinese pirate, or just sending grandma a home movie of little Timmy's first steps, you'll receive the same treatment. Some one will open your packages, and peer at what's inside them. In the case of unlabeled DVDs, that would require some one to watch them to verify their content. If I am sending some one a perfectly legal home made or even store bought DVD, I don't want any one else's hands or eyes on it.
Narcotics are illegal. Explosives are illegal. But a DVD is information. And the legality of that DVD is dependent on the source of the information and the reason and method used to create it. That is not a judgment a dog can make. Whether he is wearing a yellow leash, or a FACT windbreaker.
"She's right, Scoob, up close they look totally fake." - Shaggy
posted by MEMEPUNKS at 5:06 PM
3 Comments:
Send pirated DVD's in the bottom of coffee cans filled with espresso, then the dogs won't be able to snif them out. Me? I'll keep my pirated stuff out of the mail and keep it to myself.
Punks like you are the reason gas costs me $3.00 a gallon. My congressman told me that the extra miles driven by the secret service tracking down music pirattes is the reason we have so little gas left. You should be ashamed of yourself. What does your mother think of all this? The girls at church and I all agree. You Godless heathen music pirating scum should be dragged in to the streets and buggered by warewolves!
God Bless
Sonny: Coffee grounds with my DVDs. Has it really come to that? Good thing Memepunks is a friend to Starbucks.
Anon: Thanks for taking the proactive measure of talking to your congressman. Thanks for introducing us to the girls at church. And thanks for reading Memepunks!
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