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.
In his speech, Mr Noble began by pointing out how difficult it is to establish links between IPC and terrorism: "Much of the financing is of an indirect nature and it is difficult to attribute direct links between an individual involved in IPC and funds remitted to a terrorist organisation." His list of specific examples started with Northern Ireland, where he noted that paramilitary groups were involved in counterfeit cigarette trafficking although "it is unknown how much of the money generated... goes to terrorist groups and how much is retained as criminal profit... Other aspects of IPC in Northern Ireland appear to have no terrorist involvement." Advertiser links Charity - British Red Cross
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In Kosovo, his second example, he referred to the availability of counterfeit "CDs, DVDs, clothes, shoes, cigarettes and computer software" and concluded that "it is suspected [my italics] that funds generated from IPC benefit both criminal organisations and extremist groups". As for north African radical fundamentalists: "Sympathisers and militants may engage in a range of criminal activity including IPC."
Further, "one counterfeiting case has been reported in the media, where there are alleged connections to al-Qaida". The evidence here suggests that al-Qaida "may have indirectly obtained financing through counterfeit goods. Danish customs intercepted a container containing counterfeit shampoos, creams, colognes and perfumes... It is difficult to establish the provenance of the funds."
Mr Noble's final conclusion was that it was possible to suggest that IPC could be used to fund terrorist groups - something of a leap from the campaign posters' claim that "terrorist groups sell DVDs to raise funds". So Mr Noble would seem to be saying that there is a lot of counterfeit crime of all kinds around, and some of the funds just might go to terrorist groups, although there is no hard evidence of any DVD/terrorism connection.[...]"
Such exaggerated arguing as done by the Itipa in the field of Copyright might severely damage the credibility of anyone arguing in support of Intellectual Property. In particular, all patent professionals should do their best to avoid any such kind of temptation when publicly defending their field of Intellectual Property. It is in fact a trap, and escaping is difficult. Simply stick to the facts. They are, as in the case of IP piracy, grave enough.
Feel free to contact PA Axel H Horns via e-mail
horns@ipjur.com. BEWARE: DO NOT SEND CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION UNENCRYPTED VIA E-MAIL. USE OF ENCRYPTION SOFTWARE IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. PA AXEL H HORNS IS PROVIDING SUPPORT FOR ENCRYPTED E-MAIL MESSAGES USING PGP OR PGP COMPATIBLE FORMATS. THE PGP PUBLIC KEY FOR PA AXEL H HORNS IS AVAILABLE
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Dipl.-Phys. Axel H Horns is Patentanwalt (German Patent Attorney),
European Patent Attorney as well as European Trade Mark Attorney. In particular, he is Member of:
Duncan Campbell 
