NEWSFLASH!!! The compact disc sniffing dogs, Lucky and Flo, has successfully led enforcement officers to a major bust to date, a cache of one million pirated optical discs worth RM10mil, in Johor Bharu, Malaysia, yesterday. Not bad for first week of duty. The seized compact discs are mostly video games for export to neighboring countries. According to a spokesperson, they are not ruling out the possibility of a foreign syndicate. I guess the move in incorporating dogs in the operation is showing some results.

With all the hoo haa of DRM, and new technologies in “content protection” to minimize piracy, at the end, we still needed …dogs? LOL! and LOL again!

Malaysia has come up with a mindblowing way to fight piracy: Using sniffer dogs! The dogs are trained to sniff packages containing optical discs that are being smuggled into and out of Malaysia. The two dogs, named Lucky and Flo, are part of the whole task force under operation ‘Double Trouble’…cute. The operation is being funded by the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs in its latest battle against piracy, and according to its minister, Datuk Shafie Apdal, the dogs are trained to detect polycarbonate materials to produce optical discs and is believed to be cost affective as it takes about eight months and US$17,000 (RM59,000) to train a dog to detect optical discs, and an additional RM300 a month in dog food bills and veterinarian fees. This will not include medical costs for illegal CD peddlers and manufacturers.

Acoording to shafie, the dogs are not meant to replace existing enforcers, but to ‘help make operations easier’. If all goes well after a certain probation period, Malaysia may form a canine unit to strengthen the force. Expect to see more news on torn body parts and pirated goods in forms of cassettes from Malaysia very very soon.