Terrorism & Piracy

About a year or so ago, I noticed that the anti-piracy trailers that were being put onto DVDs started to claim that piracy funded terrorism, and now there are further such allegations being made:

http://news.com.com/Terrorist+link+to+copyright+piracy+alleged/2100-1028_3-5722835.html?tag=nefd.top

Now, not once have I ever actually heard quite how it funds terrorism, or seen any kind of proof- most of the world's media piracy seems to come from Indian/Chinese factories. So are these accusations completely groundless, and lies simply to try to strengthen copyright laws (I see we're getting DRM-enabled hardware from Intel soon), or are there legitimate fears? Discuss!

These are simple lies designed to convince the gullible that piracy is
the work of satan and such. I sincerely can't imagine Al Quaeda
using piracy as a source of income. I think drug dealing, contraband, hostage harvesting,
money laundring and gun smuggling would be more appealing (not to
mention profitable) for them. Of course, global scale software piracy
would bring a handsome income, but not nearly as good as the money
provided out of more serious transactions. Petty polititians over here
have been attempting to link
software piracy with to ITALIAN MAFIA (!!!!) but it's enough looking
at the pirates here and listening at them to realise they come either
from Russia (heck, russians are the best software crackers in the
world, apart from the chinese) or Turkey.

In places like russia there are no piracy laws, you could buy a copy of
winxp for a few bob. Terrorists might be smart enough (only just) to
figure out that they could make profit in places like these.

I'd say terrorism being funded by piracy is pretty feasible - not so much the new wave of piracy, i.e. BitTorrent - but counterfeit music CD's etc are a huge money spinner. Most of the piracy revolves around China and India like you say, but I recall that the IRA indeed funded itself in part via counterfeit goods (not just electronic copies, clothes etc). Remember also one of the biggest and overlooked hotbeds of terrorism is Indonesia, where piracy is rife.

TBH I don't even use pirate software bar a few bits and bobs here where I have objected to the heinous retail costs.

Piracy maybe does not fund terrorism, but it still goes hand in hand with crimes such as drug dealing and other sales of counterfeit goods. Trying to legitimise piracy is foolish in my eyes, it is still illegal and more often than not tied up to other criminal endeavours.

Terrorists love me then. Too bad I would slay one if I could. Its a love/hate relationship.

growls

Something is not stolen, that was not sold in the first place dammit!!

I f**king hate corporate thinking. I could go on and on about corporate asswipes, tis why I got out of management. You guys didn't think I really drove busses because I was truly stupid did you.

Someday, I will tell you all some of the horror stories I had to endue because of snot noses who "knew so much"

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The best things in life, aren't things.

management likes it in the butt

Every thing causes anything.

Do you think this would be a topic if not for the media hard on for terroisum?

Remeber a few years ago when people got all freaked out by shark
attacks? Well stealing music was to blame, you see if those kids
hadn't stolen the songs they would have been at work earning the money
for their Three Doors Down CD rather than out at the beach enjoying
their music while they get eaten by sharks.

Its just two buzz words, _______ funds/causes/leads to _________

I wish I could find that video about the butterfly that lands on a flower in Africa and sets off world weather events as a result.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

orpheus, they did a documentry on that in the UK, it was very
interesting but truely showed the unpredicatability of the weather and
such, so it didnt really matter.

lol, stupid media...

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I need a new sig

Orpheus said:
Something is not stolen, that was not sold in the first place dammit!!

Fine, so you're using something that you wouldn't pay for anyway, but then the money you are spending is going to nefarious evil pirate types- if you're going to pirate software, surely it's better (morally, ethically etc.) to get it for free?!

Leperous said:
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Orpheus</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Something is not stolen, that was not sold in the first place dammit!!

Fine, so you're using something that you wouldn't pay for anyway, but then the money you are spending is going to nefarious evil pirate types- if you're going to pirate software, surely it's better (morally, ethically etc.) to get it for free?!</div></div>

sighs

It is so hard to explain in such a way as to sound credible.

I attended numerous meetings with the management staff. The corporate bigwigs were always commenting on how we were losing money this way or that way. I kept thinking, "If you had to run this business, like you force us to run our households THEN you could talk about money shortages"

This one meeting was 2 part. One at fiscal year beginning, one at fiscal year end. At the beginning, they predicted that our company was going to make 5 million dollars. ( I am using 5 million cause I cannot recall actual figures, but the numbers will suffice (

At years end, after they paid all their debts they made 4 million. that was 1 million profit after they paid all incurred bills, payroll and materials.

They made 1 million dollars free and clear.. You know what they had to say??? THEY LOST ONE MILLION!!. They kept saying it over and over, how they lost one million dollars cause they did not achieve their predicted 5 million. I was so pissed I couldn't stand it any longer and left.

In other words, you cannot predict whom will use what till they actually purchase it so you have not truly lost anything, you just failed to acquire it.

I cannot make it any clearer than that Lep. Until you have had to deal with corporate thinking, you will not truly know what I am saying. If you have already dealt with this then you do know, but being an honest type, you feel that theft is theft.. PERIOD. Which I can also understand. Then theres the third option.. YOU ALSO THINK like a corporate person.. Which is a subject that I am not ready to discuss with you. Sadly I am forced to take ageism into account on choice #3. You are not old enough for me to do so and have any meaningful resolution. You would need to have to put in 20+ years of working for them first to have any commonalities with me.
Hope that made some sense.

[edit] DAMMIT, why did I get logged out just now??

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Terrorism is the "new" buzzword for the american public. And the
american government uses it whenever wants to push through another
corporate-funded agenda.

On a side note, Hezbollah is not really a terrorist organization; well, the question is still under debate right now, but they never participated in worldwide bombings; they never even targeted civilians as far as I know. They're just a militia who attacks Israelis, and US troops whenever they happen to be in the region. Ok, they're anti-US, but I don't think the word "terrorist" applies.

Double Post

Man, that delete feature would come in pretty handy right about now ...

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I'm sure the "connection" is forced. It would be ignorant to say that this one thing only supports this one other thing, just because it would nicely take care of two problems at the same time. Many nations have been known to do this when it benefits them. It's just rather sad, since if they do this, it means that the nation's leaders has very low esteem in the citizens.

Orph, MS does the same thing, except they flat out say it in their press releases. I believe they claimed that in one year they "lost" 53 million or billion, I don't remember. But, they said it was because of pirated copies of Windows ... I can almost guarantee you that everyone not using a legitimate copy of Windows XP or 2003 were lumped in this category. Which is, obviously, bulls**t. It's a trick, as far as I've seen, to convince other individuals to let them go ahead with otherwise ridiculous plans. Also, if they say they "losing" money, it means they weren't able to make their profit margin, or their new profit margin. It's very obscure.

It's just greed. It wouldn't be as bad if all these companies bitching about losing money made reputable products worth the price they charge.

[/rant]

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.