Porn movie plus tinny for $35

[~lostgurl~]

Porn movie plus tinny for $35
Saturday August 5, 2006
By Patrick Gower

DVD pirates and drug pushers have joined forces to bring their punters a $35 porn movie and cannabis combo deal.

In a brazen marketing twist offered through cannabis tinny houses, they are also selling cannabis and a regular DVD movie for $30. The Weekend Herald has learned that the Mongrel Mob and rival gang Black Power are offering the identical deal in their tinny houses in different parts of the North Island.
A cannabis "tinny" or bullet containing a small amount of the drug wrapped in tinfoil usually sells for $20.

Tony Eaton, executive director of the New Zealand Federation Against Copyright Theft, confirmed that its investigations had found evidence of the DVD-cannabis deals and said his group had told the police. He said investigations led the federation to one of the gangs doing the deal in Auckland and separately to the other doing it in part of the lower North Island. Police were yet to execute warrants on the addresses.

Mr Eaton would not name the gangs, but the Weekend Herald understands they are the Mongrel Mob and Black Power.

"They are selling them [DVDs] part-and-parcel with cannabis through their tinny houses. They're doing combo deals. "This is a big worry for us. These gangs are organised and all they are doing is putting another item down their distribution channels. Unfortunately, they are looking at us."

Tinny houses are one of the main methods of cannabis distribution to young people and police have previously voiced concern that other drugs such as methamphetamine, known as P, have been pushed through their established channels.

The federation, which is the Motion Picture Association's piracy watchdog in New Zealand, has 12 private investigators contracted to it and is running 50 separate investigations into commercial DVD piracy.

In another investigation, Mr Eaton said the federation would be laying a complaint against a Christchurch woman allegedly caught recording a movie trailer before the screening of the animated film Cars. Hoyts Cinema staff contacted management and the woman, who was sitting with her family, was approached and her camcorder seized.

Mr Eaton said no one had been charged in New Zealand for recording screenings, but police were investigating a similar case in the South Island.
This week, the federation revealed it had sued 14 New Zealanders who among them sold more than 10,000 pirated DVDs on NZ websites, including Trade Me. Mr Eaton said they had shut down the distribution of pirated DVDs at flea markets and had taken down 1700 pirate DVD sellers from the Trade Me site. "We've shut down the markets, and now we are casting our net wider."

Worldwide, the Motion Picture Association estimates piracy cost the film industry US$6.1 billion ($9.9 billion) in potential revenue last year. Mr Eaton said some New Zealand dealers were making thousands of dollars a week through pirated DVDs and it was believed there were up to 30 operations in South Auckland alone.

Although all types were attracted to the trade, Mr Eaton, a former police officer, said links between organised crime and DVD piracy in New Zealand were strong. He had heard from police officers who had raided gang houses and found piles of DVDs and not acted because they were unaware that charges under the Copyright Act carried a maximum penalty of five years.

NZ Herald

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/st...ectid=10394708

[hh339]

LOOOL! This is crazy. Not too bad of a deal though^^

Before internet porn became big, a lot of lazy paranoid pot smokers would probably have prefered to buy this combo instead of going to the big scary grocery store to get their porn

[~lostgurl~]

Media suck up FACT spin on drug-dealing movie pirates

P2P filesharing peer-to-peer, posted: 5-AUG-2006 09:22

The Federation Against Copyright Theft in New Zealand (NZFACT) is in the spotlight again, this time in a New Zealand Herald piece that says bikie gangs like the Mongrel Mob and Black Power are distributing pirated films.

The Herald quotes director of operations Tony Eaton of the NZFACT as having found evidence that the gangs are doing "combo deals"; for $30, you get a small amount of cannabis wrapped in tinfoil (tinnie) and a regular DVD. Another $5 gets you a porno DVD to go with the drugs.

Unfortunately however, it seems the Herald reporter didn't investigate what Eaton said. There's no confirmation from the police or any independent evidence that the bikie gangs in question - and Eaton refused to name them - are actually involved in making and distributing pirated films.

Criminal activities are obviously wrong, but shouldn't the country's largest newspaper try at least to get both sides of the story before accusing anyone? If it is true that the gangs are doing "combo deals", a bit of journalistic endeavour to ascertain facts would've made the story much better.

It didn't take very long at all to find Tony Eaton's speech (warning: link goes to a Word document) at the American Chamber of Commerce in New Zealand. It was part of the AmCham's Trade Forum event and held at.... May 17 this year, or about two and a half months ago.


In the speech, Eaton says:

Organised Crime Involvement. Australia in the last five years have shown that organised crime is occurring mainly through the Asian Gangs and involving children as young as 7 selling DVDs in the markets. New Zealand in the last 6 months with assistance and information and guidance from NZFACT has lifted the profile of the Copyright Act and has know shown that Bike gangs are now involved. NZ Police have found that youths are selling a cannabis tinnie for $20 and then for $30 a Cannabis tinnie and a current DVD or for $35 a cannabis joint and an adult movie for $35. This is also keeping the youth busy when not selling drugs he is making and copying movies for sale. better use of time

That's a bit juicier than the Herald story, isn't it?

Eaton mentions "burner labs", which seems a reference to methamphetamine and other drugs "labs", but are just home computers with a DVD writer. These burner labs can make up to twenty copies of a DVD, he says.

The Internet is a worry for NZFACT. It now takes 90 minutes to download a movie, but in five years this will drop to 15 minutes. Eaton is wildly optimistic about New Zealand broadband speeds increasing, clearly.

It is a war, Eaton says in his speech, and one that'll be won through education. Unfortunately though, teaching people about piracy takes three generations (!) Eaton says, but NZFACT is piggybacking on its Australian counterpart for completing an AustralAsian education programme. He doesn't say if the public will be made to attend that education programme however.

More disconcerting are the sniffer dogs. Apparently, UKFACT and MPAA have two dogs already, trained to sniff out "polycarbon, the main ingredient for making a DVD". Presumably the idea is that the various FACT organisations would station sniffer dogs at airports and other ports of entry, to check luggage and consignments for DVDs. Again, we have clear parallels with the drug trade.

To drive home the seriousness of the situation, Eaton tells the AmCham that "this organisation cannot afford to lose 6.1 billion dollars that we lost in revenue last year".

That figure comes from the MPAA, and is said to be the lost revenue worldwide due to piracy - not just new Zealand.

Eaton says that he wants the public on side with FACT and to understand that movie piracy is a crime; he also makes it clear that NZFACT is the protector of the New Zealand film industry:

Finally we need to protect the next Peter Jackson otherwise there will be no more Siones [sic] Wedding, River Queen Movies.

Quite.

By Juha Saarinen

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/991

[Voices]

God NZ is a strange place: Bikie Gangs? Mongrel Mob? I thought Peter Jackson's movies were satirizing the place.