MPAA equates pirated DVDs to "drugs on the street"

File this in the strict editorial department.

Sometimes overstatements are carried out in superlatives, other times in metaphor. Every once and a while, overstatements are delivered with a pathetic appeal to the perceived biases of public in order to evoke great fantasies of seriousness. If this story were about macaroni and cheese, I might write a missive on the notion of something being the cheesiest when, in fact, "cheese" isn't what I'd associate with a certain product. But no, this story is about the MPAA, and while their efforts can certainly be described as cheesy, the rhetoric is anything but.

A leaked e-mail from the MPAA wants you to believe that pirated DVDs on the street are becoming practically synonymous with the drug trade. Back in the summer of 2003 I asked, "Is P2P the next 'drug war?'," and from the looks of it, the MPAA wants to say, "yes." Of course, the Conyers-Berman bill that prompted me to write that piece died the death that it deserved, but with the MPAA stepping up its crusade on all fronts, you can expect to hear more of the supposed symbiosis between the narcotics trade and the pirated content "biz."

WASHINGTON-A fatal car chase on November 10 between a convicted felon in Virginia wanted by authorities on several criminal charges including cocaine possession yielded hundreds of pirated CDs and DVDs in the man's trunk, giving rise to a new kind of traded drug, according to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Inc's Dennis Supik.

"A lot of people we were arresting had drug conviction backgrounds. Actually, what they said was, 'This is the new drug on the street,'" said Supik, an MPAA field investigator who assists local law enforcement in anti-piracy raids.

First, I have to admit that when I first read this, I laughed. The MPAA can only wish that its members could produce a product as addictive as that sold by drug trafficers. On a more serious note, however, we turn to decoding the message. The right way to phrase this, of course, would be to say that people who engage in serious crimes may, in fact, engage in serious crimes of more than one kind. This circuitous logic has allowed interested parties to associate all manner of villainy with all manner of, well, other villainy. Child pornography? Meet P2P piracy. Marijuana? Meet terrorism. Adult pornography? Meet the sex trade. New York Yankees? Meet George Steinbrenner. You know how it goes.

MPAA investigations teams routinely uncover evidence demonstrating that many of the gangs and syndicates involved in hard goods piracy are also heavily involved in other forms of illegal activity such as drug dealing. In September, Los Angeles police arrested Jose Maria Trujillo for possession of six bundles of powder cocaine, an ounce of marijuana, and selling illegal DVDs after a search of his car uncovered more than 2,000 pirated DVDs. During the same month, Federal and local authorities in New York arrested approximately 21 members of the violent Chinatown street gang "Yi Ging" who were involved in DVD and CD piracy as well as narcotics trafficking, loan sharking and other crimes.

Most assuredly there are connections in some instances between pirates who sell pirated content on the street and people who sell other forms of contraband. This, I would argue, goes without saying. I can't imagine that there are too many people in this world who think that "organized crime" stands for criminals with an anal fixation.

What is perhaps more interesting, however, is the rhetorical strategy used by the MPAA. Today the wedding is between movie piracy and the narcotics trade. However, if you reach back in to the dark recesses of your mind, you may recall that earlier the fashion was decidedly more Middle Eastern. That is, piracy had ties with terrorism, and in recent years, it has been all to easy to present everything happening in the Middle East as resulting from Islamic extremism. For example, in 2003 the the MPAA's Jack Valenti asserted that September 11, 2001 not only changed the way America views the world, but "it also changed the way American law enforcement looks at intellectual property crimes." Valenti has said similar things in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and more recently to the Appropriations Committee last year:

We do, of course, understand that the war on terror and the imperative to keep our people safe properly consume the lion’s share of investigative attention at the FBI and other investigative agencies. But this is not an “either/or” proposition: we have the resources and we have the need to stop terrorism and combat intellectual property crime.

Translation: "c'mon feds, don't spend all of that effort fighting terrorism when you could fight piracy, too!"

Where are terrorism and piracy these days? To be sure, I wouldn't be surprised to see the MPAA roll out the terror-ghost when it suits them. However, the narcotics link is far more sensational. The reason is simple: your children, if they have anything to do with this piracy thing, may be cavorting with drug dealers, pimps, and junkies. Money going to terrorists is one thing; a partially jaded American public finds those argument specious for a number of political reasons that I won't outline here. But tying piracy to drug trafficking is a fantastic move, because if you're just loose enough with the rhetoric, you can basically draw a line from Sally making a mix-tape to Sally mixing drugs and ending up in the methadone clinic. The MPAA's terrorism rhetoric seems to have largely disappeared with the retirement of Valenti. It looks like it may be time for a new yarn.

But why this truism now? It's simple, really. First, in case you haven't noticed, the MPAA and its cherished broadcast flag have been rebuffed continually. Not only are "we, the people" vociferous in our grievances, but our politicians (either for hopes of reelection—or the in the case of some principled people on the hill —genuine concern for our rights) have mostly played hot potato as well. Additionally, there's its efforts to completely lock down the consumer electronics industry--another effort that received a chilly reception. Finally, and most importantly, there was Alberto Gonzales' talk last week, which introduced the IPAA. And what's the IPAA after? Organized crime.

There's usually both a rhyme and a reason when you look hard enough. Some stories truly are windows unto the truth of the storeyteller's worldview.

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