"By Brooks Boliek
WASHINGTON (Hollywood Reporter) - Terrorist organizations around the world are getting some of their funding from the sale of illegally copied intellectual property, including pirated DVDs and CDs, according to Interpol and copyright trade groups.

An Interpol report prepared for the House Committee on International Relations says intellectual property crimes are a growing resource for groups from Northern Ireland to the Arab world, including Al Qaeda and Hizbollah. The Recording Industry Assn. of America (RIAA) has evidence that two illegal CD plants in Pakistan are financed by Dawood Ibrahim, an Indian Muslim the Treasury Department named a "specially designated global terrorist" in October.

"This designation signals our commitment to identifying and attacking the financial ties between the criminal underworld and terrorism," Juan Zarate, deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, said at the time.

"We are calling on the international community to stop the flow of dirty money that kills. For the Ibrahim syndicate, the business of terrorism forms part of their larger criminal enterprise, which must be dismantled," he said.

Ibrahim has found common cause with Al Qaeda, sharing his smuggling routes with the terrorist network and funding attacks by Islamic extremists aimed at destabilizing the Indian government, according to the State Department.

He is wanted in India for the 1993 Bombay Exchange bombings and is known to have financed the activities of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (Army of the Righteous), a group the United States designated as a foreign terrorist organization in October 2001. The Pakistani government banned the group and froze its assets in January 2002.

While intellectual property theft is not confined to entertainment products, it appears to be a funding source that terrorist groups are willing to exploit. Copyright piracy is estimated to cost U.S. companies $20 billion-$22 billion a year.

"In July 2003 Interpol concluded that the link between organized crime and counterfeit goods was well established and sounded the alarm that (intellectual property crime) was becoming the preferred method of funding for a number of terrorist groups," according to the April 6 report prepared by Interpol Secretary-General Ronald Noble. "Developments since then have reinforced this view, and the following example illustrates how these activities continue to be a cause for concern."

Interpol's report lays out a number of scenarios, but it described one of the operations like this:

"Funds generated from (intellectual property crimes) may be remitted to Hizbollah using the following modus operandi. Counterfeit goods produced in Europe are sent to a free-trade zone in South America by a group of Lebanese criminals sympathetic to Hizbollah. The goods are then smuggled into a third country, to avoid import duties, where they are sold via a network of Palestinians. An unknown amount of the money generated through this activity is suspected to be remitted to Hizbullah."

The Interpol report raised eyebrows Wednesday during a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as it examined the impact of international copyright piracy."
READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=industryNews&storyID=5390277

Well that is the true nature of Piracy. And it should come as no suprise that this type of bootlegging is going on.

Of course this report, which has nothing to do with P2P, will be somehow rationalized to show that file sharing is also piracy. As such anyone that shares music is committing a intellectual property crime. Ergo the sharing of music is the same as supporting terrorism.

So now we can expect the politicans and the RIAA to use this report to condeme file sharing. Instead it should be helping the public be aware that the BUYING of bootleg CD's and such are supporting terrorism.

Question: What information is passed in this article?

Absolutely nothing. What links are you told of? What were you told that even suggests that there is truly a difference between a legal copy and an illegal copy of something?

I can see it now... Bin Laden in a cave in Afghanistan listening to Britney Spears.

This should be no surprise to anyone, that is , the start of the "Piracy equals Terrorism" tactic.
One of the things that many of us try to point out here is that there is much more at stake than just P2P.
It's free communication in total, with P2P as the first target.

If the recording industry would just lower the price of music, then bootleggers wouldnt make any money off the discs. The industry is also in a way supporting terrorism.

JC123 I can see it now... Bin Laden in a cave in Afghanistan listening to Britney Spears.

no no no Bin Laden on a street corner selling his own "pirated" copy of Spears for 2 bucks a pop to finance his "Holy War"

The riaa will grasp anything to make p2p look bad. Maybe they should just suggest to your congress that the two cd plants in Pakistan should be raided! Why not? They're always raiding or blowing something up.

It was just a matter of time before someone concocted a link between p2p and terrorism. Basically, any act, organization, or controversial issue can be made unpopular by bringing the word terrorist into the equation. If you're an agency and you need some power or credibility in for a questionable cause, all you have to do is simply use the word terrorism. Like this story, they called in the feds because they found a flight sim in his house.

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/3407126/detail.html

One way to tell which groups the RIAA are are aren't targeting is which are well-organized and -funded, and so forth. I've pointed out that much, if not all, of the illegal, counterfeit CD's, DVD's and computer software are marketed and / or sold by illegal aliens from countries such as Mexico and regions such as certain parts of Asia, West and Northern Africa, and (yes) the Middle East. But apart from the rare high-profile bust, they usually aren't touched (one hint that this is the case being I still see counterfeit goods sold on the street in various parts of New York City), and that may have something to do with the fact that the illegal immigrants' lobby is well-funded, well-organized, and pretty much determine our immigration policies (talk about the fox guarding the chicken coop!), not to mention groups like CAIR that would likewise scream "racial profiling" if Muslims were to be targeted in relation to so-called "music / video / Internet piracy." This problem is compounded by an increasing number of states and / or localities that have enacted legislation banning racial profiling. Same with certain minorities who also sell counterfeit goods on the street. And though this other group may not be involved themselves, the gay lobby is also highly organized and visible. But the poor and working families, people going to college or universities, those on the outer fringes of society who are just a paycheck or two away from ending up on the street -- they're pretty much on their own, brother.

So in that context, it's much more "politically correct" to go after P2P and other technology, college students, and the working poor (including a few "little brown ones" on the side) who allegedly "swap files" and don't sell any goods on the street. It's a wonder the RIAA hasn't targeted the mentally retarded in their punitive, confiscatory vendetta, the way they've been going. (Or maybe they have, and we just don't hear about it because the complicit, collaborationist media just passes them off as "mere" numbers and statistics -- this whole "666 7/8 people have been sued today . . . " stuff.)

There's an illegal immigrants lobby?

Yes . . . groups like MECHA, La Raza, the ACLU (via its "Immigrant Rights Project"), the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights of Los Angeles, the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, and the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. And that's just a PARTIAL list.

And my apologies - I should've said " . . . are AND aren't targeting . . . ", not " . . . are are aren't . . . "

They get more from our own government.

This sounds like the RIAA's way to make it sound like P2P is run by terrorists.

Whatever . . . it's the same mentality as we see from the gun-control lobby, who blame the gun industry EVERY TIME somebody goes on a shooting rampage. Or those who insist on blaming the fast-food industry for the high percentage of people who are obese in this country.

Valenti has already labled the entire of p2p "piracy" and then in the same press releace connected it with terrorists. It doesn't surprise me to see this in the main media now.

Would that be the anti fast food lobby?

Code, where are you?

These guys are at it again. Everytime an article is printed they go off on some right wing tangent.

There is no such thing as a ILLEGAL immigration lobby....maybe an immigration lobby but why throw in the illegal bit? Not every immigrant is illegal. I'm an Canadian immigrant and I'm here legally. This country was made up of settlers from europe so keep it in perspective, willya?

I can't wait for the election to be over so everybody can stop politizing everything from babies to toilet paper.

Code's gone, dude.

I think.......

Maybe...........

Where'd he go? Was he exhausted fighting off the hordes of political junkies on the left and right screaming at each other while the rest of us in the middle are just trying to relax after a hard day's work?
Christ, why can't they just stay at their frothing at the mouth blogs and let us congenially complain about the way the RIAA treats it's customers like criminals.

BTW you forgot the "quack".

More damn propaganda, like the government trying to convince me that the herb I grew in my greenhouse was funding terrorism.

Frist it was DRUGS fund terrorism then if you own an SUV you fund terrorism because buy more gas to run the SUV NOW it's bootleg CD's and DVD's fund terrorism NEXT it will be FARTING in your pants funds terrorism because people don't want to smell your farts geesh!!!!!!!

But, if, instead of buying "bootlegged" CD's, you buy CD's legally, then, OK, you wont be funding terrorism.... But, you will be funding the RIAA...... That's a tough choice to make.

"OK, you wont be funding terrorism.... But, you will be funding the RIAA...... That's a tough choice to make."

Considering what they've been doing on p2p, isn't it mainly the same thing?

Governments, groups, etc. will be using the words terrorist and terrorism to scare the people into thinking that drugs, piracy, etc. are funding terrorist activities. Its a marketing ploy, propaganda. Its all circumstantial facts that cannot be confirmed.

Yep, the spin will be... "if you download a song you are helping Osama."

Saw it comming a long time ago.