The Motion Picture Association’s Operation Blackout has resulted in the arrest of 117 people in India. In Australia 426 burners have been seized along with 661,411 pirated optical discs ; In China 211 raids have been conducted and 676,384 pirated optical discs seized and similar statistics can be quoted for Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand.
The operation targeted the illegal recording of movies once again and also attempted to spread awareness regarding piracy. Although the result of this operation has probably saved producers millions they would have lost to piracy I’m apprehensive about how successful or even viable such operations may be.
Motion Picture Association senior vice president and regional director, Asia-Pacific Mike Ellis as issued a statement saying that at this rate they will be able to stay one step ahead of the “pirates” but it seems like there’s a hard battle ahead of them yet.
The full article may be found here.
Firstly, although the number of seizures and raids have increase almost 300% since the last operation in May 2007 it still isn’t substantial. Secondly, i don’t know whether attempts to raise awareness will help considering most people who deal in pirated wares do so knowing about the legality of what they are doing. Thirdly, the price difference between an original and a pirated version of a film or music is so great that people are willing to risk viruses on their computers, shady markets and poor quality. Lastly the potential for information dissemination on the internet is so great that it may be a challenge for the MPA even to stay a few steps behind.
