Anti-Piracy Dog Uncovers Huge Cache of Discs 283
sgt scrub writes "I've never thought about sniffing my CDs before buying them but that is all about to change. According to this Yahoo! news article, dogs can be trained to tell the difference between a legit copy of a DVD and one from those pesky pirates. From the article, 'A DVD-sniffing anti-piracy dog named Paddy has uncovered a huge cache of 35,000 discs in Malaysian warehouses, many destined for export to Singapore, industry officials said on Wednesday. Paddy was given to Malaysia by the MPA to help close down piracy syndicates, which churn out vast quantities of illegal DVDs. The dog is specially trained to detect chemicals in the discs.'" We ran a story about anti-piracy dogs being trained in Ireland a few years ago.
Misleading summary (Score:5, Informative)
The dogs don't smell the bits on the discs and determine if they spell out "Pirate!" or "Legit.". The dogs smell out optical discs and thats it. Then they take the dogs and go to a shipment/warehouse/whatever that isn't supposed to have any discs in it, and let the dog loose. If they find discs, chances are the discs are illegal in some way. And it turns out that people who smuggle pirated copies don't have them clearly marked on their manifest.
So yeah, the dogs find discs. Officials check to see if there are supposed to be discs here. If not, they probably just sniffed out illegal discs. You know, because if they were legal discs, you'd just put them on the manifest.
Re:How does the dog do this? (Score:1, Informative)
They don't, they just smell out the CDs. So if the dog starts going crazy at a warehouse, you check to see if the warehouse is supposed to have CDs. If it the warehouse isn't, chances are you found a pirate stash. Arrrrrrr.
Re:So.... (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, sometimes the content is good but you don't want to pay the price to the middleman. There are some bands that if I could I'd buy records directly from the band, I like the band but don't like the label, so I go to concerts so support the band more directly.
I also believe that the current prices are quite high on music, especially with the addition of $1.29 songs on iTunes. A better price point would be below $.50 with all songs downloadable on an album.
So in conclusion, I believe that morally you should have a right to copy and download, legally I know that you do not and I try to stay away from illegal downloading simply because its illegal but yet I do believe strongly in a right to download.
Re:How does the dog do this? (Score:4, Informative)
The dog is simply trained to smell chemicals used to manufacture CDs/DVDs if they're in a large enough concentration (like, say, 35,000 in a warehouse). It's up to the investigators to decide if they're counterfeit or not (which can't be too difficult if they find, say, 35,000 in a warehouse that has no records of legitimate CDs/DVDs being stored in it).
The original story [bbc.co.uk] has details.
It's because pirates stink, duh! (Score:2, Informative)
That and being a pirate/biker myself (pirate by blood, my great grandfather was a Spanish pirate in Campeche!) we stink. So apparently we need to improve our hygiene! BTW have you seen Anakata lately? Now do you believe me about hygiene...
Re:time to pack discs in coffee grounds (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/node/8634 [cannabisculture.com]
I have found pot wrapped in plastic, layered next in mustard, followed by a tinfoil layer, smeared with grease, re-wrapped with more plastic and finally blanketed with scented dryer sheets and dropped into coffee grounds!
35,000 is not "huge" (Score:5, Informative)
That's not the only thing misleading about the title - 35,000 is not exactly a "huge" number of discs.
According to Amazon, a 10-pack of slim-line discs measures 3x6x5 inches. That's 90sqin, or 9sqin per disk. Multiply by 35,000, and you get 315,000sqin. Sounds like a lot, but that's only 180 square feet. The entire stash would sit neatly on two pallets (stacked 6.5' high) or in 1/15 of a standard shipping container.
The same number of disks stored on 100-pack spindles would fit in a 4'x4'x3' stack, or slightly more than the cargo area of a Yaris. So, kudos to the dog for finding such a small target but deduct points for the overly-enthusiastic headline.
Re:So.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mod me down, but... (Score:1, Informative)
...aren't these the guys we _want_ the MPAA/RIAA to go after?
What we have here is one lot of criminals going after another lot of criminals. There doesn't seem to be any particular reason to take sides.