There are a couple of other tricks we're going to see. The thing to remember as we go through the "Industry Trust for IP Awareness Limited's" little list is that they are - and this is - about DVD piracy. Watch what happens to certain key words. Roll up! Roll up! All the fun of the fair!
 

What the "Industry Trust for IP Awareness Limited" says.

There are a couple of variations in the PDFs, little extra bits that come out of nowhere, but mainly they stick to a party line of figures and cases, repeating them at every opportunity, and holding them up to justify certain conclusions (eg, DVD piracy kills babies with bombs). It's a big dot-to-dot puzzle with special shortcuts.

Let's take the Case Studies page first.

Straight out of the gate, we're being told to associate DVD piracy with organised crime.

The NCIS says

Is piracy a "serious criminal offence"? Not according to the NCIS. They deal with a lot of bad things.

Serious sex offenders there, not just your run-of-the-mill ones. The only counterfeiting they bother with is funny money. Obviously these are the big boys, hard at work to catch the big crims. They're not going to waste time on people knocking out dodgy copies of The Matrix from a car boot - that's what Trading Standards is for.

Still - the point of the campaign is who's REALLY behind DVD piracy? - copying Harry Potter 3 is just a sideline to raise funds, right? Planting the seed to associate DVD piracy with organised crime in your opening paragraph ("seizures... involved organised crime groups") is a means to an end; it'll all be explained later. And presumably if you're borrowing the NCIS's name and the NCIS's definition of organised crime, you'll be extremely careful to respect the critical element in that definition of a "serious criminal offence" - which pirating DVDs, in itself, isn't.

Okay. We have that in mind. Back to the "Industry Trust for IP Awareness Limited."

Pretty "unequivicol." Dodgy DVDs "found to be financing drug trafficking." Finding those DVDs "led police to raid premises."

No source supplied, but tickle the internets.

The Wealden District Police site says

So it's a raid looking for stolen goods and counterfeit stuff generally.

So they've found some dodgy DVDs, along with dodgy clothing, some other stuff and what's clearly regarded by the police as the major haul, airguns and BB guns with the potential for "devastating consequences" (though whether or not the guns were counterfeit or stolen isn't mentioned).

General brief leads to general raid, which uncovers a variety of crimes.

Six people arrested for a variety of crimes, standard procedure to search their houses, discovery of what police "believe to be" drugs. No link suggested by police between the alleged cocaine/cannabis and DVD counterfeiters. (In fact, this paragraph all but exonerates them - the drugs were found in Eastbourne, the dodgy DVD machines somewhere else entirely. There's no suggestion the six people are anything but working separately.)

The Chief Inspector there saying they had no specific information, but knew that, generally, stolen and counterfeit items were being sold. (Plus "prohibited" ones - the BB guns? Are they illegal to sell now?) He "believed" some of the crims were also dealing drugs, but doesn't mention the alleged find miles away from where the DVD copiers were discovered, so it can't be uppermost in his mind. (It's oddly out of place with the emphasis on car boot con artists. Perhaps it was thrown in to appear brilliant after the fact.) Clearly he's more interested in cleaning up the car boot sales. It's the usual semi-annual roust when the dodgy sellers get too blatant.

So. The "Industry Trust for IP Awareness Limited's"

should in fact be

See how this thing works?

Next paragraph.

No source given, but tickle the internets.

Hmmm. Trickier, this one. The only exact match is, er, the "Industry Trust for IP Awareness Limited's" own page. The nearest independently verifiable thing I could find was a news story about a man from Pakistan caught at Heathrow with a suitcase containing 2,000 copies of Lord of the Rings.

Anyone? This obviously major case ought to be easy to spot, especially as to qualify for the "Industry Trust's" little list it must have "involved organised crime groups" - so equally, to qualify for the touted NCIS definition, there must have been a "serious criminal offence" as well. Drug smuggling, perhaps? Guns? Football hooligans? Help!

(NB - watch out for apparent corroboration that's from the "Industry Trust's" own members, like the British Video Association.)

Meanwhile, next paragraph.

No source, but tickle the internets.

Interesting discrepancies from, er, FACT's April 2004 activity report:

The awful writing aside ("a mixture of offensive weapons and £21,000 in cash" - eh? Unless they were all carelessly tossed in the same laundry hamper or something, I suppose), some intriguing differences. Note "discs" instead of "DVDs." No mention of "organised crime." No mention of the "discs" being counterfeit, come to that. (As far as we're told, they could be blanks.) Those dramatic "bases"? They were "premises" to start with. We learn three people were arrested but "bailed pending enquiries" (so not the roughest crims or the greatest flight risks in the world) and that the international search warrants (perhaps for the counterfeiters' customers? Who knows?) found - er, well, they were used.

And obviously there's the spin - as the "Industry Trust" is so certain, we'll give them the "7 computers, 156 burners, 6000 discs" as qualifying for criminal purposes; but that still leaves searching "three premises" and finding "20 credit cards... £21,000 in cash" presented as intrinsically damning.

Again, every other result of a search leads right back to the "Industry Trust" corroborating itself. Can anyone find anything else about this obviously major international case with its weapons, guns, false IDs and maybe DVDs?

Next paragraph.

Captain Google says: the "Industry Trust" self-corroborates again. Next!

Same again; search and the "Industry Trust" backs itself up. Presumably the "pirate film" items seized were DVDs rather than counterfeit posters or some legitimate films about pirates, but note the way that an unfounded connection is made between DVD piracy and the stun gun/"open bladed kitchen knife" (eh? Do they do flick ones?). It's practically proof of organised crime, which is handy as this case otherwise fails to qualify.

Next paragraph.

Can anyone rewrite this story with fewer facts? "(A) forum"; "a website"; "a large quantity of paedophilia"; "the computer" - oh, there was a computer then? Surprisingly, I couldn't Google this one either. I don't understand the "further investigation" bit at all - do they mean that the dodgy Matrix boxes (or whatever) turned out to contain child porn? (Wouldn't the people who wanted to buy cheap Matrix knock-offs complain?) Or hadn't they bothered looking in the big box they found? WHERE ARE THE FACTS? HOW CAN WE TELL WHAT HAPPENED? WHO WRITES THIS STUFF?

And it was all going so well with the first story, where THE FACTS contradicted and destroyed every one of their ridiculous baseless claims. Hey, perhaps that's why the others don't give you enough to trace them.

Next paragraph.

Promising; these lads love to let you know when they've done something.

Okay, the relevant section of the "full Sheffield press release" says

A treasure chest of extra detail there.

The internets lead - yes! - straight back to the "Industry Trust for IP Awareness Limited." In the absence of corroborative evidence, let's try rewriting the story, bearing in mind the proof that "people traffickers are using illegal immigrants to sell counterfeit goods" is (a) arresting one bloke who (b) spoke no English to the people arresting him who therefore assumed he was an illegal immigrant (he's "of Chinese origin"! He must be!); and (c) when they brought in a translator to interrogate him in the police station where he would stay if he confessed, he said was a slave labourer. Okay, here's my attempt.

Why not have a go yourself? Send it in on a postcard or sealed-down envelope.

Next paragraph.

The "full Swansea press release" says

I'm surprised by this. Local boys always want to play up their coups. Tch - I forgot - this whole thing is centrally managed by the "Industry Trust for IP Awareness Limited" through their PR company. To the internets!

Nope, a closed loop back to the "Industry Trust's" own sites yet again. This is baffling. Or could it be that these Trading Standards people don't think dodgy DVDs are worth alerting the press about? (Remember, even that Chief Inspector in East Sussex Near Polegate was interested, roughly in order, in the county's image, prohibited airguns, counterfeit clothes, his tea and fake movies.) How can they be so lax? Don't they know DVD piracy kills babies with bombs? Incidentally, the Swansea story appears to have forgotten altogether to try to bring up organised crime.

Final paragraph.

Why bother? They haven't. "Nothing happened here in Gateshead, but we agree." They could at least have told Eddie Waring they were playing their Joker.

So the "Industry Trust for IP Awareness Limited" is a giant cartel of movie companies and retailers with media nous and a preliminary budget of £1.5m to prove the link between DVD piracy and organised crime/terrorism/blowing up babies with bombs in order to ram through even more uncivil laws. We're some idiots on a forum reading their site or typing things into Google, and already we can see where their story is falling apart. Is that story just badly presented - poor value for their £1.5m - or is it false in the first place? Stay tuned!