[FYI] Introducing Del-Qaida
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1263360,00.html?=rss>
Introducing Del-Qaida
Worried about losing money, the entertainment business is peddling
false links between DVD pirates and terror cells
Duncan Campbell
Saturday July 17, 2004
The Guardian
If you buy a pirated DVD from a bloke in the pub, you could be
personally responsible for the deaths of innocent women and children
in terrorist attacks. That, essentially, is the message being
promoted this week by the Industry Trust for Intellectual Property
Awareness (Itipa), the body that represents some of the world's
largest film companies. This week it launched a £1.5m "public
awareness campaign" to inform people of supposed links between the
"Del Boy" characters who sell pirate DVDs and terrorist cells.
Posters claiming that "terrorist groups sell DVDs to raise funds" are
at the heart of the campaign. Anyone renting a video will now be
receiving the same message. So where is the evidence for this claim?
The industry group cited as its chief witness Ronald Noble, secretary
general of Interpol. It quoted him as saying: "The link between
organised crime groups and counterfeit goods is well established, but
Interpol is sounding the alarm that intellectual property crime (IPC)
is becoming the preferred method of funding for a number of terrorist
groups." The "preferred method of funding"? A call to the Interpol
office in Lyon seems appropriate. We are referred to Mr Noble's
speech last July,to the US House of Representatives committee on
international relations, on the subject of the links between IPC and
terrorism.
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