The MPAA Smells That Smell

Drugs, bombs and pirated DVDs. It’s all about priorities:

DVD piracy costs New York City about $50 million in lost sales taxes each year. Drawing on his background as a federal prosecutor, John Malcolm decided to try a low-tech solution to the high-tech crime.

“Dogs are used to sniff out bodies, bombs and drugs,” said Malcolm, who’s now the chief of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association of America. “We just needed to see if they could be trained to smell the unique chemicals in DVDs. Lo and behold, they can.”

At a demonstration here yesterday, two black Labradors named Lucky and Flo were able to pick out boxes full of DVDs. They made no critical judgments — for them, all movies stink. They can’t tell the difference between legitimate or pirated products, DVDs or CDs. But their ability to unearth discs makes the jobs of police and customs officials much easier.

“We’d like to get law enforcement interested in using similar dogs,” explained Malcolm.