Battleangel

The US never fails to leech on to an urban legend furthering their cause.

When Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. John Stedman was booking a clothing store owner last year on charges of selling counterfeit high-fashion merchandise, his attention was drawn to the large and colorful tattoo on the man’s arm.

The tattoo included Arabic writing, suggesting it wasn’t a gang symbol or the mark of one of the many organized crime syndicates that have helped make dealing in knockoff goods — like Gucci handbags, Prada shoes and Louis Vuitton watches — a multibillion-dollar industry in the United States.

It turned out to be a symbol of allegiance to Hezbollah, the Islamic militant organization that the U.S. government has designated as a terrorist group.

Source: LA Times via Agonist

What, above all else, is the US interested in? Well first of all protecting its own and Israeli interests, the latter of course being the main target for the Hezbollah. And they are desperate to prove that counterfeiting and breaking intellectual property laws does serious damage. Because for the average guy who doesn’t say own a multinational media and fashion empire, it may not be much of a problem. Simply to correlate facts that don’t relate. And here is a link of course, no matter if it’s true or not. Not only will Gucci and Prada lose a couple of bucks. But it will be the end of the world. The sky is falling.
Very thorough police work by the way. Kudos to the County Sheriff for uncovering the “tattooed secrets.” Plus everyone knows that only scumbags, liberals and hoodlums have tattoos. Duh. Good work playing on preconceptions and fear. I couldn’t have done it better myself.

Gucci by the way made $2 billion in 2003. Boohoo.

Then I saw something interesting over at Boing Boing …

The Register of Copyrights, Marybeth Peters, who previously has testified before Congress that the Betamax decision should be overturned testified today before the Senate IP subcommitee that:

1) Int’l copyright infringement was funding terrorism, although she had only rumors and sketchy evidence;

2) Some ‘like-minded’ countries seek to undermine existing int’l copyright and couch their arguments in terms of ‘cultural diversity’ and ‘encouraging development’;

3) claiming that unnamed American commentators on copyright law provide rationalizations for commercial copyright infringement by criminal organizations; and,

4) that we need the INDUCE Act domestically otherwise other nations won’t take our arguments about copyright enforcement seriously.

Source: Boing Boing

I don’t like this at all. And I didn’t like the US to begin with mind you. Still this manages to upset. Oh, how well this fits into the new american idea of world order. I wonder when we’ll see the US invade its first country officially and solely based on IP “infringement.”