- Title: MEXICO: Anti-piracy sniffing dogs visit Mexico
- Date: 26th April 2008
- Summary: DOGS IN PARK VARIOUS OF PEOPLE TAKING PHOTOS OF DOGS FLO STANDING WHILE FLORESCENT DOG COAT IS PLACED ON HER BACK
- Embargoed: 11th May 2008 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Mexico
- Country: Mexico
- Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
- Reuters ID: LVA25SJGC0W5HMKE7NG2YWP9L9Y7
- Story Text: Two dogs trained to sniff out DVDs, visited Mexico City on Thursday (April 24) to assist federal police in the battle against pirated DVD's and CD's.
"Lucky" and "Flo," two female three-year-old Black Labradors from Ireland - specially trained by California-based Motion Picture Association to detect the polycarbonate and special solvent used in the manufacturing of optical discs - are in Mexico to help demonstrate the level of the problem of piracy in the country.
Pirated discs are abundant in Mexico. It holds the dubious honour of being the world's No. 4 exporter of pirated DVD's and CD's, with 50,000 illegal selling outlets compared to only 3,000 legal ones, according to the Mexican Association for the Protection of Cinema and Music (APCM).
The pair have travelled to the United States, Czech Republic, Philippines and to Malaysia, where they facilitated the arrest of 26 people and seizures worth over $6 million.
Among those items confiscated were more than 1.6 million optical discs, three DVD replicating machines and 97 CD-R burners.
Their successes in Malaysia so shook up syndicate bosses that they reportedly put a 100,000 ringgit ($29,000) bounty on the dogs' heads.
The labradors accompanied Mexican federal police agents to a pirate shop and warehouse in the middle of the capital to sniff it out.
General Director of the APCM, Jaime Campos, explained that the dogs were here to help law enforcement authorities, if they so wished to take it up as a novelty measure to combat disc piracy.
"It's a complementary help really, the presence of two dogs who can identify for the first time the polycarbonate, which is the material used to make the DVD and the CD, both in it's original presentation, the virgin product and the finished product or burnt in an amateur way. It's a complementary help, which competent authorities can make use of, mainly in the entrance to the country throw customs."
As federal police officers cleared out dozens of material from a pirate shop, Lucky stood on top of a stack of DVD's and CD's wagging her tail.
The dogs actually cannot distinguish between fake or real discs but their forte lies in sniffing out secret hideouts that law enforcement officials could not detect, such as warehouses or customs areas - which saves time and is cost-effective.
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Executive Vice-President and Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations, John G. Malcolm, said that the Malaysian government was so impressed with these dogs that they decided to set-up their own canine unit.
"Well we're always looking to work with law enforcement authorities in Mexico in order to improve the effectiveness of our joint fight against piracy and if they're interested in establishing a canine unit, we'd be happy to talk to them about that. Anything we can do to assist the Mexican government in the fight against piracy, we're be happy to consider," said Malcolm.
MPA is a group that represents six of the world's biggest movie studios -- Buena Vista International Inc., Paramount Pictures Corp., Twentieth Century Fox International Corp., Universal International Films, Sony Pictures Inc. and Warner Bros. Pictures International.
The group estimates that copyright theft cost its members about US $483 million dollars in lost revenue in Mexico last year, with annual world-wide losses of $6 billion. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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