When the word "piracy" is thrown around it is generally used as a general term for downloading stuff for free. It's one of those terms that has become general use while not being entirely accurate. Sharing content on the internet comes under the banner of "copyright infringement". The piracy aspect is only really comes in when someone is profiting from the sale of copyright infringing content.
Now that we have the lesson out of the way let's get to the actual story. The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has apparently had investigators scouring the world looking for the dark alleys and seedy dives that are selling pirated movies. So who is right up there amongst the biggest offenders? That's right, Australians!
The Caribbean Gardens and Markets in Melbourne is a 10,000 square covered market and one of the biggest in Australia. Allegedly in among the 1,000 plus stalls you can find 10 to 20 individuals selling pirated DVDs including recently released titles. Wow this place really is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
But it gets better. Since the Trans Pacific Partnership talks (which started in 2010 and are still going) put copyright piracy in the same category as full scale counterfeiting the MPAA and associated organisations have been touting the line that copyright infringement supports terrorism. While this current report doesn't take it to that extreme they still take the opportunity to point out that since some of the locations on the list are associated with underground criminal organisations that must mean ALL the places are associated with underground criminal organisations. We don't have a handful of people with access to a multi DVD burner and an inkjet printer, no, we have gangsters running the face paint stall, mini golf and train rides!
It does seem a bit odd that this rather excessive report comes out at the same time the Australian Government announced they were looking into an anti-piracy plan. This, along with talk promising to allow greater involvement of industry groups in trade negotiations, does not bode well for the digital freedom that Australians have enjoyed while other countries have been laboured with everything from "three strikes" through to enforced blocking of websites.
Getting back to the original subject I am utterly amazed that an industry that is losing so much money year after year can afford to pay for investigators to travel the world and discover terrible, yet family friendly, places like the Carribean Gardens and Market. And somehow they still manage to scrape together a measly $200,000,000 for a movie such as Iron Man 3 (which incidentally has grossed at least $1.2 billion so far).
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