GLASGOW is being targeted in a hard-hitting campaign to warn that buying pirate DVDs can help fund child porn rings... The campaign has been launched by the Industry Trust for Intellectual Property Awareness whose members include film and video distributors, retailers and cinema chains.
It seems that telling people fake DVDs funded Osama Bin Laden wasn’t effective, so the campaign’s looking for a new angle. Is there any evidence? Of course not. I’ve scoured the web and the best I can find is this, from a similar campaign in 2004:
raids to premises involved in piracy have also unearthed drugs, pornography and weapons.
Is it a surprise that groups involved in large-scale counterfeiting are also involved in drugs or porn? Not at all – the police have long said that the same people flogging fake movies are often flogging counterfeited porn DVDs too. But fake DVDs funding kiddie fiddling? Even by these scare stories’ usual standards, that’s sinking to a new low.
The truth is actually in the story:
Some market traders are thought to be earning £1000 an hour from fake DVDs, CDs and computer games.
And that’s why they do it. The people flogging fakes, generally speaking, aren’t funding Osama Bin Laden or secret kiddie-fiddling networks. They’re people who’ve realised that the cost of duplicating a disc is almost zero, and that selling dodgy discs is therefore one of the most lucrative crimes you can commit. It’s also one of the safest, which is why the porn/terrorism angle is so ridiculous.