<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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