[Groop] Motor City Con Report

[Elie A. Harriett]

Yes, it is true, Motor City Comic Con got busted very publicly today for 
piracy by the MPAA.  Some of you are probably right now going, "huh?"  
While others of you are probably saying, "it's about time!"  Someone 
must have been upset about paying twenty five bucks for a grainy DVD 
copy of deleted Star Wars scenes.

Really, I don't know how any of you feel about these guys, but I always 
equated the people selling bootlegged videos/DVDs at cons to the press 
in the 1910's who labelled the Titanic as "unsinkable."  They post 
disclaimers on their labels that say they "believe" what they're selling 
is public domain and are treating their wares as such. A couple of years 
ago, the Spider-Man 2 DVD that had that label on it was showing in the 
theatre two blocks down the street. 

They made themselves a huge target and the MPAA couldn't resist.  I 
wonder if they'll be going after any other cons this year (San Diego, 
anyone?)
Elie

Janet Harriett wrote:

>Maybe Sergio was right to spend the weekend in Oakland after all.  As we 
>got to the last aisle of our preliminary walk-through, we found 
>ourselves in the middle of a full on police raid.  The local and state 
>police, with some help from gents in red "MPAA Anti-Piracy Task Force" 
>jackets, hauled off all the vendors selling pirated videos.  Every 
>single one of them.  In every aisle, there was at least one booth draped 
>in black tarp with a uniformed, armed police officer standing guard over 
>vendors who, at best, looked like this was not one of their better 
>days.  Reports are that at least a few were led out of the convention 
>center in handcuffs.
>
>I was wearing my Groo and Rufferto shirt, and one vendor, who was not 
>arrested as he sells MP3 disks of content clearly in the public domain, 
>made a mulch joke when he saw me.
>
>Janet
>
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