Hollywood is unveiling two weapons in its war on piracy: Lucky and Flo.
No, it isn’t a sequel to the 2005 film Hustle and Flow (or the 1989 classic Tango & Cash). Lucky and Flo are black labradors trained in the art of DVD-sniffing.
In an effort to combat the scourge of pirated DVDs of movies and television programs, Federation Against Copyright Theft and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have trained the dogs to sniff out the polycarbonate used in making disks.
After eight months of schooling in Northern Ireland, Lucky and Flo were unleashed in a trial run in May at Britain’s Stansted Airport, where they found all of the DVDs hidden in a cache of FedEx packages.
The MPAA, which estimates that piracy cost Hollywood studios $6.1 billion last year, will kick off a Lucky and Flo tour next week at its headquarters in Washington in an effort to encourage customs agents the world over to get their dogs hooked on polycarbonates. The tour will stop in Los Angeles, Mexico, Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai and the United Kingdom.
And if they’re looking for a DVD to plant for the D.C. demo, we suggest Cats.
