Congress earmarks $30 mil to fight piracy

[p2p rules]

NEW YORK -- Congress agreed to provide $30 million in new funding for the battle against piracy as authorities on Monday also reported success with a recent year-end piracy crackdown code-named Operation Holiday Hoax.

The new funds target personnel and programs authorized by last year's Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act.

The funds include $20 million for new state and local economic, high technology and Internet crime prevention grants; $8 million for new FBI agents targeting IP crimes; and $2 million for new Department of Justice IP prosecutions.

"Congress took a major step forward by providing $30 million in funding for new FBI agents, federal prosecutors, and local and state law enforcement grants to protect American jobs and creativity by cracking down on the theft of movies and other intellectual property," MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman said.

The MPAA and RIAA on Monday also lauded the recent Operation Holiday Hoax, which involved U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and agencies that are part of the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center. The crackdown targeted illegal vendors in big U.S. cities and led to seven arrests and the seizure of 79,796 counterfeit CDs and 79,610 DVDs, they announced.

Glickman argued the crackdown was key due to the negative domino effect on the industry and its employees. "Copyright industries in the U.S. lose $25.6 billion a year in revenue to piracy, the U.S. economy loses nearly 375,000 jobs either directly or indirectly related to the copyright industry, and American workers lose more than $16 billion in annual earnings," he said.

hollywoodreporter.com

[DaBees-Knees]

I would really like to see them come up with an explanation of how they arrive at those figures that they quote on losses. I strongly suspect they would be hard pushed to come up with a credible answer.

[GhostShip]

It must be pointed out of course that if anyone does the maths with Dans figures they dont stack up as according to his stats no one works for the industry because they all lost their jobs some years ago  

What is clear from this is that the recent focus is on rounding up street level disk duplicators, something I,m sure we all agree would hardly be necessary if the prices of media where set so that everyone could afford to enjoy an original copy of the product that they turn out, rather than only those with fat wallets. Over-priced product is often a method of slowing down a markets expansion, however it is their product and industry and if they choose to strangle it by not looking at the bigger picture who am I to tell them, learning to count however is important in any industry and creating fraudulant figures every year for congress and their paid for politicians shows you how dis-honest these industry groups are, shame on them and shame on Dan who will soon be retiring I,m told.

Many folks may not be aware but hollywood was based where it is now because of a legal loophole that allowed them to not pay for other peoples intellectual property, thus talk of intellectual theft is surely the pot calling the ketle black.