Colbert Helps Save World From Polka Pirates

from the those-darn-pirates dept

A few of you have sent in the fact that the Colbert Report recently did a fun segment about a guy arrested for selling polka DVDs:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Nailed 'Em - Polka Piracy
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For all the talk we hear about how DVD counterfeiters are connected to "organized crime" and "terrorists," a lot of the times it's really situations like this one, involving a guy who did a public access TV show about polka. Someone called him to see if they could buy some DVDs of the show, so he made a few DVDs and sold them. But the whole thing was a setup, and the next morning he was arrested. The whole thing shows what a joke some of these claims really are.

Separately, I do find it amusing to see folks like Colbert mock the overreaction to things like copyright infringement -- considering that his employer, Viacom, is so aggressive on spreading the myth that DVD counterfeiting is really about supporting terrorism and organized crime.

Update: Good discussion in the comments about what the specific charges were in this case. Apparently, the guy used government equipment to make the recording and DVDs, so the local government felt it was theirs -- and they sold their own DVDs, which this guy's DVDs undercut. He was charged with using city property for "personal gain." Oddly, there's an "embezzlement" charge as a part of this... More details here.

Filed Under: colbert, counterfeit, dvds, piracy, polka