OldKingClancy said:
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I can understand what they're trying to say but really, you buy a counterfeit dvd and someone gets shot? A little ridiculous.
Actually yes, which is why it's informational.
A lot of these knock off goods are produced by countries like China and various third world nations. They violate copyrights and patents, produce their wares in sweatshops, and then ship them off to wealthy nations where they undercut the prices of the actual creators. This causes people from the companies who developed the products to lose money and lay people off, supports the sweatshops, and other thigs.
When it comes to the violence aspects of things, understand that these countefeit goods are illegal and also worth a lot of money cumulatively. This means a lot of the smuggling and distribution is handled by various levels of organized crime. Despite what you see on TV gang fights happen over things other than the flashier crimes like drugs, prostitution, and illegal gambling. One gang might claim a specific flea market as their dumping ground for counterfeits (ever notice how at a lot of these things everyone seems to have the same goods? Also notice how many people selling the knockoffs are minorities, specifically asians and latinos which are also the people from the nations running the sweatshops and such, these guys are doing business so many of them don't look crooked, but that's part of the point. You might have the mother, grandmother, sister, or girlfriend of a ganger pushing this stuff, and notice at flea markets outside sports stadiums and such your literally buying out of the back of a van despite them having a table set up). 4 pairs of jeans for $20? Sure they have labels you recognize, but that happy seeming guy selling them to you probably has them smuggled in from south american sweatshops).
This also supports human trafficking, after all setting up a sweat shop in the US helps reduce the risks involved in smuggling and of course the costs of transport and distribution. So they take illegal immigrants being smuggled into the US, chain them up in a warehouse (or force them into indentured servitude of one sort or another) and force them to produce clothing and such.
Overall the DVDs themselves might be relatively painless (being cracked and burned) compared to other things, but it's all pushed by the same basic people, and supporting these groups, hence why they spin it from something trivial into a big deal to show what your dealing with overall. That money your paying goes directly into the pockets of what else these guys are doing.
Also understand that organized crime, whether it's on the mafia (or Triad, or Yakuza, or whomever) or street gang level doesn't just have it's fingers into one thing. The same basic organization that pushes the counterfeit goods probably ALSO runs drugs, prostitution, extortion, and other things.
It can be painful to see, because a lot of people don't think in terms of the big picture, the video could have been put together better (it doesn't explain the connections well enough even if they are there), but it's accurate.
Understand also this is about counterfeit goods, not piracy, that's something else and a seperate crusade. It's not addressed at things like "The Pirate's Bay" or whatever, there are whole seperate cases/suits/videos/etc... about that kind of stuff and why it's a problem.
.. and as a closing note (and not to repete myself again) understand that things are coming to a head with China's robber economy, especially given the current economic state of the US and what's happened to it's credit, and the way China is building up it's military and becoming increasingly belligerant. China is the biggest offender in knocking off goods and then selling them in the markets they are robbing. All this stuff with the loans they gave us and what not have been diplomatic dancing games to avoid this issue from coming to a head (I've written entire mini-essays on the subject here on these forums, you can probably find them in the archives probably, but if not I'm sure I'll break it down again eventually). Right now the US goverment is funding this kind of thing to try and raise awareness and hopefully limit the amount of money leaving the country and going to China (and a few other nations). After all China basically sells the stuff to "import/export companies" who are actually smugglers, and then those criminals bring the goods into first world nations to sell.... and that's before you get into some of the more direct connections between the Chinese goverment and organized crime... especially through it's intel services, which is again another entire arguement. If you followed the whole thing with Al Gore's presidential bid you might have heard a point towards the end (which was glossed over because he lost, even if I think it hurt him at the end) with him receiving money directly from China that was being fronted through Buddhist temples and donated, with those temples themselves being triad fronts (ie if I remember the bust showed that the Chinese goverment had their dirty tricks people give the money to the Triad, who used the temples as a front to donate it to Gore in exchange for future favors).... in short the US is finally entering into an economic/financial war we've been neglecting, and this is a beginning of a propaganda campaign that hasn't found the right groove yet (and honestly, despite the negative association, not all propaganda is nessicarly bad, there are some good reasons for this as I've explained).
