L.A. police deal a devastating blow to the piracy industry!

[buffys]

I saw this story and every concern I'd had about the misuse of government money evaporated, FINALLY the really crucial problems are being addressed.

In a major bootleg-movie sweep, Los Angeles police shut down a counterfeiting operation Wednesday that film industry officials said could make more than 1 million DVDs a year.

Police from a new anti-piracy unit raided an apartment on Burlington Avenue in the Pico-Union area, where officials confiscated 5,680 DVDs..." Police also seized 40 DVD burners, 6,000 blank discs and $2,000 in cash.

I'm still a bit conflicted in these piracy issues but come on, $2000 in cash? The studios spend that on breath mints for christs sake.

In July, the LAPD established an anti-piracy unit devoted to investigating and prosecuting counterfeiting and trademark violations.

I'm not advocating piracy but an "anti-piracy unit"? In L.A. there are apparently countless sleeper cells running amok, blue collar crime is basically ignored (billions of dollars), murder is a daily event, child porn is rampant and gangs are making the mafia look like a church organization. Any bets on wether the Boise Idaho P.D. has an anti-piracy unit? They might, I haven't looked into into it but I'll guess they don't.

"This action puts a dent in a significant criminal operation."

Thank god the important stuff is finally being taken care of.

L.A., you can sleep safely at last.

 

[Kunax]

whats a "blue collar" crime?, can it be done in a white shirt?

 

[buffys]

lol, right I meant white collar. tx.

 

[Tiassa]

Any bets on wether the Boise Idaho P.D. has an anti-piracy unit? They might, I haven't looked into into it but I'll guess they don't.

Nor have I checked, but still, Boise might surprise us. During WTO'99, while Mayor Schell proclaimed that the police were not using wooden riot rounds against the protesters, what he didn't tell the press was that the reason for this was because they did not have them, and in fact as he spoke a plane was being loaded elsewhere to bring that very equipment to Seattle for use against protesters. The plane was being loaded in Boise.

Nonetheless, 'tis a relief to see the LAPD bust a racket for once, instead of operate it.

 

[Nasor]

Two things to keep in mind:

1. These sorts of large-scale piracy operations are usually run by organized crime syndicates. It's quite likely that the profits from it were being used to finance all sorts of other illegal activities that aren't as 'victimless' as DVD piracy.

2. I'm sure the $2000 was just whatever petty cash they happened to have on hand, and not representative of how much money they actually make. They might move most of their money around electronically, or they might clear out all their profits at the end of each day or week - in which case the $2000 might have only been income from a singe day or part of the week.

 

[buffys]

fair points, it was mostly the creation of this unit in the city that coincidentally makes most of the movies that bugged me. Piracy is borderless, theoretically L.A. shouldn't have any more than any other city. So having a squad in L.A. specifically and not say Texas or Boston doesn't make any sense really unless it's just the movie industry using it's influence where it has the most.

I recently heard an interview with a police chief of a major city (can't recall which) and when he was asked about white collar crime he said it was an epidemic but they generally have to ignore it completely because they don't have anywhere near the manpower to make even the tiniest dent. The numbers were astounding, literally billions and billions of dollars and - unlike piracy which makes the assumtion that the person buying the copy would have bought an original had they not had the pirated version - it's actual money out of peoples pockets, not assumtions or projected earnings lost.