Ulster dogs sniff out 1.6 million counterfeit DVDs

Local & National

Thursday, August 30, 2007

By Sean O'Driscoll

Hollywood movie bosses are searching for Ulster dogs to join the world's first ever DVD-sniffing canine team.

New animals are needed to replace Lucky and Flo, two Belfast dogs who became the world's first canine team to be trained to seek out illegal DVDs.

The pair received a hero's send off in Malaysia last week after detecting 1.6 million illegal movie discs in just six months.

Lucky and Flo left Malaysia for New York at the weekend. In New York, they are to attend publicity shows and help find US-based DVD pirates for the American Motion Picture Association.

The pair were the world's first dogs to be trained to detect the solvents in DVD cases and were sent by the Motion Picture Association to Malaysia, which is a major hub for the illegal DVD trade.

Both were trained by David Mayberry, a Northern Ireland investigator for the Federation Against Copyright Theft, a UK-based anti-pirating organisation.

It cost $$17,000 to train the dogs. The cost is shared among the six major Hollywood studios that make up the Motion Picture Association.

In Kuala Lumpur last week, the Malaysian deputy trade minister, S Veerasingham, placed medals around Lucky and Flo's necks, saying that pair had achieved a "remarkable amount" in such a short period of time.

While some say that the dogs are being used for publicity and that their contribution has not been as great as the Motion Picture Association claims, the trade ministry has said that the dogs helped find 1.6 million DVDs and 97 CD burners.

They also detected a DVD manufacturing plant behind a false wall.

The burners alone were worth $$6m, the ministry said.

The effort to stamp out Asian counterfeit DVDs is being taken very seriously by Hollywood.

The Motion Picture Association estimates that its member studios lost $$6.1bn in worldwide sales in 2005 because of illegal DVD sales.

The Asia-Pacific region accounted for $$1.2bn and the United States for $$1.3bn of the overall total.