Sections Technology, Education-Alumni Anti Pirate Dogs
| Anti Pirate Dogs |
The two female black labradors received medals from the Malaysian government on Monday for a five-month campaign that crippled movie pirates. They were the first animals to receive such an award.
The campaign led to 26 arrests and seizures of illegal discs worth more than $6 million. "The dogs have proven to be a major asset in our fight against the pirates, and we intend to continue what Lucky and Flo have set in motion," S Veerasingam, Malaysia's deputy minister for domestic trade and consumer affairs, said in the statement.
Malaysia, which figures on a U.S. watchlist on piracy, has dramatically stepped up efforts to rein in copyright pirates as it negotiates a free-trade pact with Washington. The success of Lucky and Flo has prompted the ministry to set up its own canine unit to fight the pirates, and the MPA, which arranged for their trial by Malaysian officials, plans to donate two new dogs to the unit by the end of the year.
Movie pirates even put a bounty of 100,000 ringgit ($28,560) on Lucky and Flo after they busted a fake DVD ring in the southern Johor state in March, the MPA said. Since then, the dogs have been closely guarded. Lucky and Flo's next stop on their crime-fighting tour is a visit to New York, followed by a trip to Toronto for an appearance at a film festival, said the MPA, which groups six major Hollywood film companies.
The MPA groups Walt Disney's Buena Vista; Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom; Sony Pictures, a unit of Sony; Twentieth Century Fox, a unit of News Corp.; Universal Pictures, a unit of General Electric's NBC Universal; and Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner. The group estimates that copyright theft cost its members about $1.2 billion in lost revenue in the Asia-Pacific region last year, with annual worldwide losses of $6 billion.
|
|