And while we're poking fun at the MPAA today ...

... I remember catching the first two episodes (I believe) of the UK show The IT Crowd, and it was pretty hilarious stuff ... especially for those who actually work in the IT department. From what I hear, an American version of the UK show will hit NBC as a midseason replacement -- and based on the popularity of The Office, I don't blame them for looking to our friends across the pond for quality humor. That being said, a friend of mine pinged me with this video over on YouTube earlier today. Apparently it was created by the folks behind The IT Crowd, and it's a play on all those anti-piracy ads we've been exposed to lately. You know, the ones that start out with "You wouldn't steal from ... " And then it's at that point the ads get progressively stranger, and you're left asking yourself how in the world this relates to you downloading a crappy version of Live Free or Die Hard. Yeah, those. I've included the video above, enjoy.

In case you've been worrying all weekend about the fate of the anti-piracy pooches, Lucky and Flo, the threat on their lives may be decreasing. The bounty offered for their killing may still be on the table, but the DVD bootleggers in Malaysia are reportedly trying out other non-lethal solutions in dealing with their canine enemies. Authorities were given a new tip claiming that the movie pirates are using a chemical spray to throw off the scent of their illegally produced discs. Presumably the spray makes the discs not smell like discs -- perhaps instead like something dogs hate, like citrus.

I don't mean to imply that Malaysian bootleggers read Cinematical, but this is similar to what I suggested the pirates do in order to spare the lives of the dogs. Of course, my idea was to throw off the scent with steaks (or maybe a beef-smell spray) placed in other secret rooms that don't contain discs, but the actual plan they're going with is more realistic -- if not as funny. The pirates additionally made a point over the weekend to show they weren't beaten too badly by last week's busts, which were aided by Lucky and Flo, as authorities are reporting a major presence of pirated discs at retail outlets over the past few days. It looks like the dogs have their work cut out for them in the next few weeks. Hopefully they will continue their successes without any harm or further threat coming to them.

Remember back in September we told you the MPAA was introducing disc-sniffing dogs to its anti-piracy campaign? Apparently they are working well. Earlier this week the two Labrador retrievers, named Lucky and Flo, helped to locate about 1 million pirated movies and video games in warehouses in Malaysia. The discs were worth a street value of nearly $3 million and the raid also resulted in the arrest of six people and the seizure of a lot of burners and other manufacturing equipment. Lucky and Flo proved to be vital to the operation, sniffing out discs in hidden rooms and delivery vehicles that would not have been found without their helpful snouts.

Unfortunately the pooches did such a great job with their first mission that they are now in great danger. Lucky and Flo are now a genuine threat to the Malaysian piracy trade, and so somebody involved in the trade has put up a bounty for the killing of the dogs. The amount of the offer isn't being reported, but officials were tipped off about it and have since put the dogs in a safe house. You'd think the pirates would know better considering they deal with movies on a daily basis. Seriously, haven't they ever seen any comedy with guard dogs or drug-sniffing dogs? They could save the money and the guilty conscience by simply placing steaks in other rooms to throw the dogs off.

I'm not sure, but I think most of the movie pirates out there do not buy DVDs. But if they do buy DVDs in addition to all the burned or downloaded titles they steal, they're about to find out some horrible news: pirating movies is bad -- illegal even. New DVDs released this year will include special inserts supplied by DEG (Digital Entertainment Group) urging people to buy authentic DVDs rather than pirated copies. Again I'm not sure, but I thought the unavoidable FBI Warning message that plays before the movie already covered this ground.

Isn't this like car manufacturers putting fliers in vehicles urging new auto buyers not to steal other cars? Why remind someone who just bought your product to continue being a good consumer? It feels a little unappreciative to me. Even if the insert reads: "Thank you for buying this DVD and continuing to support Hollywood's efforts to entertain you," the honest spenders should feel a little annoyed.

Normally the big studios would let the MPAA deal with international pirates, and the MPAA would work with individual governments on the arrests and punishments of these criminals. But in a rare case, the five majors are investing in an actual trial in order to sue a Chinese bootlegger. The difference this time is that the pirate in question is not an individual or part of an illegal group, but a company. The Beijing Shiji Haihong Commerce and Trade Company, to be exact.

The studios are seeking 2.5 million yuan ($312,000) in damages for the company's copying and distributing of titles including The 40-Year Old Virgin and The War of the Worlds to their subsidiary video stores. The amount may seem pretty small considering the trouble that Hollywood will encounter while following through with the suit, but I guess, to the studios, money is money, and the message that it sends to other Asian companies should be significant, too.

Sometimes before advance screenings, security guards will confiscate camera phones for the duration of the movie in order to prevent piracy. Most people's reaction is to question the likelihood of someone actually pirating a movie they record with their phone. Aside from the fact that few people could be interested in such a bad-quality product, there don't seem to be any phones capable of recording an entire feature-length film. Well, ludicrous reasoning never stops the MPA from enforcing their anti-piracy policies, and now at least one man is facing imprisonment for recording a few minutes of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift onto his phone. Either they've got some better phones in Taiwan or the guy had a ton of memory cards -- the police only confiscated one additional card to the one inside the phone -- and planned to include a significant amount of gaps on his end product. He now faces a large fine and the possibility of becoming a different kind of pirate in jail. Another man in an unrelated incident was also recently caught recording the same movie on his cell phone but he was not charged because he was either able to erase the recording or his phone broke and lost its memory.

For some reason the MPAA considers cell phones the same as camcorders when dealing with piracy, and now they apparently have an example to further suspect moviegoers with camera phones (which is probably most moviegoers nowadays). At least one way of dealing with annoying cell phone users (talkers/texters) is now to report them to management as alleged pirates. If enough witch-hunting occurs, maybe we could get people to fear bringing their phones into theaters altogether. Plus there could be a cash reward from the MPAA, too. Then later we can get unwanted co-workers fired by starting the rumor that they're terrorists. Or commies. Or witches. Or pirates. Or pod people. I'll let you continue the list ...

Remember back in the '80s and '90s, before piracy became a big deal, when everyone made mix tapes and even sometimes (gasp!) copied whole albums onto cassettes? Remember when it was okay to tape a show or movie with your VCR? Well, it is no wonder that the record and movie industries have been having great difficulty convincing people that copying is just as illegal as downloading. Probably because there aren't as many easy scapegoats to arrest or sue when the piracy pertains to simple, small-scale copying.

The Los Angeles/Bloomberg poll, which I wrote about the other day, has some more results that aren't any more surprising than the revelation that people don't like paying a lot for movie tickets and concessions. 58-percent of teenagers think that it is fine to copy a DVD or VHS tape that they or a friend paid for. In fact, they think it is legal. Comparatively, 19-percent think its okay if the movie wasn't purchased. At least a smaller percent thinks it's okay to copy movies, regardless of the situation, than to copy music. This is likely because nobody ever popularized video mix tapes (or DVDs). Actually, I'm surprised that never happened. That Boogeymen - The Killer Compilation DVD was a great idea.

Just when you think the MPAA is concentrating too much on piracy abroad, especially in Asia, the NY Daily News reports of a big bootleg bust in the United States. But oh, wait, the MPAA had nothing to do with the arrest, which occurred Thursday night in Brooklyn. It was all thanks to New York's Finest. The NYPD seized 71,000 CDs and DVDs, which filled up 600 boxes at the 67th Precinct station-house, along with packaging materials and 39 burners. Eight people were taken into custody, as well.

I always wondered if the police in my great city ever bother with DVD bootleggers, since they're typically selling out in the open on sidewalks and subway platforms. Usually, I feel good thinking that the NYPD is probably concentrating on more important things, like protecting me from worse threats than movie pirates. But now I'm worried that I won't be able to pick up a copy of World Trade Center while waiting for the L-train later. Not because I really want to watch the movie, but because if people can't pirate a movie about 9/11, then the terrorists have definitely won.

Last week another anti-piracy raid was conducted, this one in the Philippines, and it could have been a lot like the action scenes I've been imagining the MPA's war on piracy to actually be like. The Philippines National Police and Special Action Force officers searched a residence in southern Metro Manila, which resulted in the seizure of not just 6,500 pirated discs, but also hundreds of grenades and rounds of assault-weapon ammo, plus a lot of porn and drugs.

Unfortunately (for cinematic purposes), no weapons were actually used and there wasn't a blockbuster-worthy battle, but this is certainly a step in the right direction. This was just one of those near-climax sequences in which the action hero sneaks up on a bungalow full of guerrillas who are lazily playing cards or sitting in hammocks with their hats over their faces. The pirates simply didn't have time to reach for the grenades and guns. And they never knew what hit them. But we do. It was ... Glickman. Dan Glickman.

If someone were to actually make a fictionalized action movie based on the MPA's war on piracy, then the sequel might be a good, old-fashioned court drama. Or, maybe it could just be more of the same, considering piracy will never actually go away. Here are some updates from the MPA's ongoing campaign:

• Lawsuits were filed by the MPAA last week against six people accused of selling counterfeit DVDs on eBay. The individuals, who don't seem to be related, as they are all based out of different states, were likely producing decent copies of legitimate discs and selling them cheap to poor suckers. Damages could as high as $150,000 per movie title, per person. This press release is fun because the MPAA has included a little "Buyer Beware" tip list for idiots. For the movie version of these trials, we'd look to last year's The Best of Youth and include a similar courtroom full of innocent, yet mentally unstable victims attempting to communicate the pain felt by being duped. Bootlegs aren't the same as electric shocks, but we'd have to make the audience think it's the same, because that is how importantly the MPAA treats them. Caution: this sequel might be six hours long.
• This past weekend, 14 online auctioneers settled with the New Zealand Federation Against Copyright Theft, on behalf of the MPA, for an undisclosed sum. They also had to agree to stop selling pirated discs. All together, the 14 individuals sold more than 10,000 bootleg DVDs over the past year via New Zealand auction sites. I picture a bit of an anti-climactic ending to the movie version.
• If we wanted to go in sort of the Empire Strikes Back, enemy-wins-this-time direction, we'd follow the trial of Shawn Hogan, a millionaire who is willing to spend as much as it takes to defend himself against the MPAA and their allegations that he shared Meet the Fockers online. He denies this act of piracy and is more interested in clearing his name and fighting the bullying system rather than pay a settlement, which would likely be cheaper for him. We'll have to wait and see what happens, but we could start production without a finished script. Hollywood does it all the time.