Recently, the United States Congress agreed to provide $30 million in new funding to put towards the battle against piracy. On Monday, authorities reported another victory on the piracy front- great success on a recent year-end piracy crackdown which is code-named Operation Holiday Hoax. These new pledged funds will target personnel and programs which were authorized by last year's Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act.
Funds will include $20 million towards new state as well as local economic, higher technology and Internet crime prevention grants. An $8 million portion will be for new FBI agents targeting IP crimes, and the last $2 million will be dedicated to new Department of Justice IP prosecutions.
Monday, the MPAA and RIAA spent time lauding their Operation Holiday Hoax, which involved U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement along with with other agencies that are that make up the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center. This specific crackdown targeted illegal vendors in large U.S. cities, and led to seven arrests as well as the seizure of 79,796 counterfeit CDs and 79,610 DVDs, according to the announcement.
Also part of the announcement were figures indicating that the copyright industry in the U.S. loses $25.6 billion a year to piracy, and the U.S. economy loses nearly 375,000 jobs either directly or indirectly related to the copyright industry. Worst of all, American workers lose more than $16 billion in annual earnings, reportedly. Courtesy of hollywoodreporter.com
