Can I ask a question. Does this mean I'm not allowed to send home made DVDs (family videos, etc) to friends in the UK? Cause how will the dogs tell the difference?

Score: 0

Do what we used to do in the Army - use powdered aniseed on the package, one good sniff and the dogs out of commission for quite a while.

Also, put mothballs in with the DVD / CD wrapping - this will keep all the other sniffer dogs away.

We used aniseed and dried (powdered) blood to neutralise tracker dogs on Army exercises!

Score: 0

I hear the dogs are forming a guild and have a new program to teach Hollywood execs to sniff out good scripts. Perhaps they will finally make a good movie.

Score: 0

wtf what if your parcel contained a DVD with videos of your family or other private stuff, that is just f*cking breaking into your privacy.....

Score: 0

I knew some day my tax dollars would buy one more waste of money project. I just figured it would be monkeys who fling poo at anyone smuggling dvd's. Not dogs.

Score: 0

ROFLMAO

FACT trains sniffer dogs to locate DVDs
11 May 2006 16:41 by Dela

The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) is celebrating after successfully training two sniffer dogs, Lucky and Flo, to locate DVDs. The two black Labradors were part of a project supported by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Eight months after their training commenced, the dogs can now successfully locate DVDs amongst other cargo items. The dogs passed a test at FedEx's UK hub at Stansted Airport where they were successful in identifying packages and parcels containing DVDs.

However, since legitimate pressed DVDs smell pretty much the same as counterfeit DVDs, the DVDs the dogs successfully located were in fact legitimate. In total the dogs identified three packages, which customs officers then opened. Despite the failure of the dogs to locate a single counterfeit DVD, FACT is claiming the initiative as a great success. Usually dogs are used only to find explosive substances or drugs.

"This is the first time dogs have been used anywhere in the world to search for counterfeit DVDs and the results were amazing," said FACT director general Raymond Leinster. "With the cooperation and assistance of FedEx and Customs we were able to properly test the dogs in a real life situation and prove that they can work in a busy airport environment." Mary Callahan of the MPAA also praised the dogs. "Lucky and Flo’s immediate success in locating DVDs in transit offers us a new and highly effective means of detection for counterfeit discs." she said.

Source:
The Register

Score: 0

It sounds like the dogs are seizing lots of ditch weed in those packages. MPAA idiots who smoke too much of it, just might get the crazy idea, that a dog can smell DVDs and tell one from another. People can't tell the difference either unless they work all day in factory which presses them.

Somebody ought to rig a booby trapped package for those suckers and the file lawsuits for false arrest. We aren't going to buy their CDs and DVDs that are pre-packed with smell of fresh $h!+. Then again, you don't need a dog to pick up that awful scent...

Score: 0

This is nothing. I'm being sued by the MPAA. I train my dogs to smell out crap and they attacked four MPAA execs...sheesh

Score: 0

"FACT has so far been successful in seizing over 2 million pirated DVDs during 2005."

Yet only caused 21 million ppl more taxes and 6-8 weeks long shipping delays and cost FedEx millions of customers.

Score: 0

Pfft. These dogs are nothing! My golden retriever is cuter, and not only finds DVD's, but chews them into unrecoverable oblivion!

Pirates, fear my pooch.

P.S. He also finds and destroys remote controls, digital and analog wires, pillows, etc. Will work for food.

Score: 0

bulls***

Score: 0

So what do illegal DVD's smell like? And how do they smell different from a DVD that I would burn with home video on it and send to my grandma?

Score: 0

These idiots are getting WAY out of control!

So does this now mean that I have to worry about damage & delays every time I order DVDs (recorded or blank) online? If this is so, who doesn't order blank media in quantities of at least 50, usually 100 or more?, or are they able to distinguish between virgin and burned media? Can they sniff out both R and RW?

AND if they do sniff out virgin blank media, whatcha wanna bet they'll "make a note" of any bulk orders of blank media they discover?...and mark the receiver as a potential pirate of course!

I do love this bit of the article..."The packages have been opened but so far no pirated movies have been found." Sounds like tax money well spent to me, how 'bout you? ROFLOL

Next will they have them on the local forces, stopping anyone with DVD/CDs on their person?

*Rant Warning:*
I say put our tax money to legit use, not funding to protect private corporations' assets. I wonder if the gov't would kowtow to "we the people" if we were all to play "big business" and claim losses because we didn't meet out "projected" earnings each year!

STOP THE MADNESS!!!

sing along with me..."if I had a hammer...there'd be no more MPAA/RIAA/FACT members..." (insert maniacal laugh here)

Score: 0

The question in my mind is "Are the dogs capable of distinguishing bootleg DVDs from normal DVDs?" If they aren't then this is all a colossal waste of time. There are underground DVDs that are so sharply produced it's hard for anyone to tell them apart from legitimate pressings.

If the dogs are sniffing out printer ink (used for dustjackets) or sharpie pen (used to mark CDs and DVDs) then it's equally useless.

Score: 0

What about private plane to southern Ireland... into lorry... drive to Northern Ireland... then ferry across to England.

"Hide in plain sight"

And what if the pirate copies are shipped with a number of legit DVDs? The pirates could even ship the same legit DVDs back and forth.

In fact if the package appears to come from a recognized outlet I doubt if they will open it.

(AFAIK) Tesco's DVD come from Jersey. So simply make the package appear to come from Tesco.

Just a thought !

Score: 0

I think bourgeoisdude is working for the entertainment industry. I've read 7 posts (in the span of 1 hour) by this user and they are all the same drivel lawyers for the MPAA/RIAA recite religiously. It wouldn't surprise me if he was one of their crony’s trying to generate buzz and support for yet another failed policy. Instead of understanding the underlying social issues of why some of these items are pirated, they’ve decided to form another consortium with another fancy acronym. The FACT of the matter is, it's another failed policy and a waste of resources. Here's a thought how about actually have all packages coming into a country sniffed for drugs, people, biological, chemical, or nuclear material. Just a thought but hey that doesn't generate revenue for the MPAA, personal safety is low on the list of priorities. Only in the world of Hollywood would hiring dogs to sniff packages for movies makes absolute sense. Who says Hollywood is out of touch.

I assume the reply to this message will be from bourgeoisdude and yes I did read the article.

Score: 0

Sit Ubu sit, good dog! Woof!

Score: 0

You know...I betcha this is the reason the Music and Movie industry is losing so much money. Not because of Piracy, but because they are spending all this money on training dogs to sniff out DVDs...........

Score: 0

As long as these dogs can't sniff out ones and zero's in the digital realm, all is good in the world

Score: 0

next they will be suing old grandmas...

oh wait, THEY ALREADY DID!

Score: 0

You know, back before things became so stuffy when travelling (like the "did you pack your own bags" question is really going to put the kibosh on some jack head looking to go jihad on someone), I was tempted to put dog bones in my buddies luggage to see if the drug dogs would pick it up and he'd get hauled off the plane.

Now it looks like I should smear peanut butter on the inside of a CD case and stick it in his bag. My dog goes nuts for peanut butter, I wonder how they'd react. ;-)

I can see how they're going to train the dogs now. "OK Fedo (notice FedEx is hosting this), if you smell up to five DVDs, then it's OK, but if you smell six or six hundred, you go nuts."

Glad to see that the MPAA is making enough off of the CDs to be able to fund this sort of crud.

I think artists should drop the labels altogether and just start putting their stuff for sale directly on iTunes. Imagine how much money they'd make even on a $0.99 sale? Probably at least 50 cents and that's probably more than they make per song now.

Score: 0

I couldn't stop laughing when I read this on Slashdot 6 hours ago....

Score: 0

What a total waste of money.

Morons.

Score: 0

Score: 0

I heard that crack sniffing dogs are fed with crack because they have to recognise the smell. Does it mean that the FACT feeds the dogs with DVDs?

Score: 0

DHL is cheaper anyway...lol.

Score: 0

Don't you guys get it? The only reason this is a "news" story is that the MPAA/RIAA strategy is FUD. If they remind you to be afraid of them, they're effective. They do so by planting feel-good stories like this.

No one give a flying hoo-hoo about a dog, but a dog is cute. Dogs "fight crime"... that's what this is about.

I don't have any problem with Customs snaring illegal, pirated stuff. That's awesome. But leave it to the MPAA morons to take credit for the hard work that Border Agents do for us every day. Shameful.

Score: 0

Is May 11 the equivalent of April Fool's anywhere???

Score: 0

GAY.......................!!
Waste of time, and invasion or privacy!

Score: 0

So how do they understand the difference between a legit DVD containing personal information and an illegal copy of a movie? Do illegal movies smell differently :)

If not are they going to search every package that contains a DVD?

Score: 0

funny thing about getting searched by dogs is, all you need to do is put red pepper powder on your luggage and it will kill their noses, then bam no more doggy problems huh?

oh and i doubt very highly the mpaa has the authority to search you should you resist.

Score: 0