Two black labradors have become the motion picture industry's latest weapon against counterfeiters who are causing billions of dollars in losses to movie producers.
Lucky and Flo began a one-month trial operation yesterday to sniff out pirated DVDs and CDs in Malaysia, the Los Angeles-based Motion Picture Association (MPA) said in a statement.
"The dogs ... are the world's first dogs trained to find optical discs in packages and containers used by pirate syndicates for smuggling stolen movies around the world," said MPA, which conducts piracy investigations on behalf of major motion picture companies.
Malaysia's Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs invited MPA to bring Lucky and Flo to Malaysia after ministry officials saw them in action in Hong Kong and Dubai, MPA said.
The dogs were trained in Northern Ireland and have also demonstrated their skills in the UK and US, it said.
In Malaysia they will work alongside enforcement officers in various parts of the country to help the ministry of trade assess the feasibility of setting up a dog enforcement unit, MPA said.
The dogs gave a demonstration yesterday at the Malaysia Airlines cargo loading area at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. They sniffed cardboard boxes and then sat down, wagging their tails when they found something suspicious. As their reward, they got a tennis ball to chew on.
Lucky and Flo are trained to detect polycarbonate and other chemicals used in optical discs but cannot distinguish between CDs and DVDs, burned and replicated discs, or legitimate and pirate discs, MPA said.
"However, because legitimate shipments of optical discs are generally registered on shipping manifests, the dogs will be valuable in locating discs being shipped in unlikely or unregistered containers, which may contain pirated CDs or DVDs," it said.
The dogs' Malaysian mission, known as "Operation Double Trouble," is an example of the close industry-government collaboration needed to battle pirates, said Mike Ellis, the MPA's senior vice president and regional director for Asia-Pacific.
"The global and organized nature of optical disc piracy requires constant and close collaboration between industry stakeholders and law enforcement agencies," he said.
Malaysia's Minister of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs, Mohammad Shafie Apdal, said the government is receptive to new methods of combating piracy.
The MPA said a recent study found that its member firms, which include the world's biggest movie studios, lost US$6.1 billion to worldwide piracy in 2005.
Last year the MPA investigated more than 30,000 piracy cases in the Asia Pacific region and assisted law enforcement agencies in 12,400 raids that led to the seizure of more than 35 million illegal optical discs, it said.
Counterfeit movies are openly sold on the streets of Malaysia and other Asian nations at vast discounts from the prices of legal copies.
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