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Report: MPAA to Lay Off Over 10% of Work Force

Jorge — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 00:21:43 +0000

The reason isn’t currently clear at this time.

There’s an interesting report on CNET which suggests that over 10% of the MPAA work force might be laid off. A spokesperson confirmed that layoffs are happening, but didn’t confirm the extent of how much of the workforce would be laid off.

From the report:

The MPAA’s leadership is mostly unaffected, said the MPAA spokeswoman. Prior to the layoffs, Dean Garfield, one of the more high profile MPAA attorneys, left the trade group in December to become CEO of the Information Technology Industry Council, a technology-focused trade group.

It’s unclear from the report why the layoffs are occurring, though there could easily be a strong indication against the activities of p2p. Going back to a report we wrote last year, the copyright industry stock market values, for the most part, dropped significantly no doubt thanks to the general economic crises given the drops all occurred at roughly the same time the general stock markets went down. Our report might be just another nail in the coffin of the argument that file-sharing is causing the major copyright industry to lose real money. Given that reports are coming in on a near daily basis of a fresh round of layoffs, almost all of them seeing the companies in question blaming the economic crises, this would probably be just another case of this happening.

MPAA anti-piracy dogs now face ‘chemical weapons’

soulxtc — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 16:15:15 +0000

The war on the MPAA’s Malaysian CD sniffing dogs heats up as “Lucky” and “Flo” now face chemical sprays designed to mask polycarbonates.

I mentioned last week how Lucky and Flo, the MPAA’s Malaysian anti-piracy disc sniffing dogs,were the new target of “syndicate bosses” after having been so successful in assisting with the recent seizure of almost $3 million USD worth of pirated DVDs and VCDs.

Well, now it seems that since the dogs have gone into hiding, being shuttled to a variety of different safe houses to keep them out of the reach of people looking to collect the bounty on their heads, movie bootleggers have begun starting to use a chemical spray on their pirated DVDs to thwart the super-sniffing Labrador duo.

Lucky and Flo have been trained to detect the polycarbonate chemicals used in manufacturing DVDs, but Malaysian officials received a tip that pirates are now using chemical sprays to mask the scent, said Fahmi Kassim, the Domestic Trade Ministry’s enforcement chief in southern Johor state.

“The pirates are believed to be desperate because the dogs were so successful,” Fahmi told The Associated Press.

After the March 19th raid on an office complex in which 1 million pirated DVDs, and CDs worth $2.8 million were seized, the disc-sniffing dogs were subsequently targeted for death by “syndicate bosses” and promptly moved to a safe house by authorities for their protection.

The dogs have apparently not taken part in any anti-piracy raids since last week’s effort, and there is no word on whether or when they will resume their hunt for pirated discs.

The two are on loan for at least a month from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), so how much longer they have to remain is unclear. Their first reported work began on March 13th, so they presumably have at least a few more weeks “in country.”

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/tech_news/MPAA_anti_piracy_dogs_now_face_chemical_weapons’;

Wanted dead or alive: 2 MPAA anti-piracy dogs

soulxtc — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 15:42:41 +0000

It seems a contract’s been put out on the MPAA’s Malaysian anti-piracy disc sniffing dogs, with “syndicate bosses” offering an undisclosed bounty for their heads.

After a recent seizure of almost $3 million USD worth of pirated DVDs and VCDs, “syndicate bosses” have put a contract out on the 2 optical disc sniffer dogs the MPAA recently loaned to Malaysia as part of an aggressive new anti-piracy plan that were responsible for the high profile bust.

“Following the successful raid at a shopping complex in Johor Baru on Tuesday, sources informed the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs that syndicate members are looking for the dogs,” the ministry’s enforcement assistant director, Firdaus Zakaria, said yesterday.

“The dogs are a genuine threat to the pirated disc syndicates, thus the instruction to eliminate them.”

The dogs have been placed in a sort of “witness protection program,” and are being shuttled to a variety of different safe houses to keep them out of the reach of people looking to kill them and collect the bounty that is being offered.

Lucky and Flo, the names of the two anti-piracy dogs, were trained and sent there at the expense of the Motion Picture Association of Malaysia, and were the first such dogs trained specifically to sniff out polycarbonates, one of the main ingredients that make up optical discs.

The bust was the first major assignment for the duo, and the bounty on their heads is a sign of just how successful the bust apparently was.

I just wonder if they now have to wear bulletproof vests and disguises. Maybe, maybe not but, I love the fact that they’ve now got “syndicate bosses” after them. You just can’t make this kind of stuff up.

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/tech_news/Wanted_dead_or_alive_2_MPAA_anti_piracy_dogs’;

SOULXTC: “walkin’ the streets of P2P”

US trains new ELITE Swedish anti-piracy police force

soulxtc — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 21:45:03 +0000

Look out Pirate Bay, the FBI and the MPAA have joined forces to create a new Swedish anti-piracy ‘p2p’ “hit squad”.

Never one to let its interests anywhere in the world go unprotected, the United States govt and the MPAA have teamed up with the Swedish govt to create an elite corps of Swedish anti-piracy police.

In an effort to help stamp out pesky Swedish pirates, FBI agent Andrew Myers and the MPAA have given a group of six Swedish police officers extensive training on how to effectively combat piracy and catch people who engage in illegal downloading from the internet.

For those of you who are unaware of whom Agent Myers is, as was I, he is noted for having spoken on a E3 Panel back on May 11th oflast year. The topic was “Game Piracy: Protecting Your Product.”

Gamasutra writes:

Andrew Myers, FBI, agreed that with things like BitTorrent files released to the net, it’s often ripped before it’s leaked, by employees with a little money dangled in front of their faces. “You can’t stop piracy, but you can go after some of the sources, then report to the company about the nature of their leak, and how they can do better in the future.”

Just the kind of govt. agent the MPAA was lookign for I’m sure.

Together, Agent Myers and the MPAA’s instruction to this new Swedish anti-piracy unit ranged from rules and regulations governing copyright enforcement and piracy, to examples of anti-piracy initiatives in other countries that have already proven effective. The most shocking revelation is a report of a lecture given by the MPAA in which officers were shown the ins and outs of movie camcording, or “CAM-ing.”

When the police were asked about possible conflict of interest by having a private interest group such as the MPAA involved in the training of enforcement personnel, they apparently saw none.

“I have full confidence in the organizer of the course,” noted the head of studies at the Swedish National Police Academy, Marianne Hilton. “We have contacts with organizations outside the police. If we have made the judgment that if a group has competence that we can use, then we invite them in.”

Interestingly enough, when asked if there were other cases in which an industry group was invited to give training on how to enforce their agenda she was unable to provide one.

Sweden’s Pirate Party, which campaigns for copyrighted material to be free for everyone, noted that the MPAA should not be able to get involved in its country’s justice system, ”just to protect their old, lucrative monopoly.”

The Pirate Party was not invited to provide a counterbalance at the training seminar.

These new “super 6″ will soon deal will the majority of the Swedish police’s investigations about copyright rules and piracy and are expected to hit the internet “streets” at any time.

What strikes me as odd however is why this training is needed all of a sudden and why is the US govt and a US based lobbying organization involved in the training of a foreign governments police force at all?

Is piracy so difficult to determine in Sweden that it requires so embody else to tell them it what it is and where it can be found?

The last time I checked it was right in front of their noses at a place called The Pirate Bay, so does this mean they don’t care about this site and are focusing elsewhere like on the small-time Direct Connect guys who swap an album every now and then?

Once again we see the US doing everything in its power to back up the demands of Big Business, it happened before with the WTO talks in Russia, and it looks as though it’s happening once again.

I bet the Swedish people are going to love to find out that the US govt and a US-based corporate interest lobbying group now have a hand in training their police personnel. So much for the notion of national sovereignty.

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/tech_news/FBI_and_the_MPAA_train_new_ELITE_Swedish_anti_piracy_police_force’;

SOULXTC: “walkin’ the streets of P2P”

Russia set to streamline anti-piracy procedure

soulxtc — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 14:39:28 +0000

Russia is going to simplify the procedure for enforcing copyrights and related rights, an Economic Development and Trade Ministry official said Friday.

The widespread violation of intellectual property rights is a bitter point of contention in the currently stalled bilateral World Trade Organization accession talks between Russia and the United States.

The U.S. has repeatedly demanded more effective steps to curb piracy in Russia, which it said costs American companies millions of dollars in losses.

“We are now preparing an array of measures, both on the legislative and on the law-enforcement level,” said Yury Lyubimov, an aide to the economic development and trade minister.