Malaysia bids farewell to anti-piracy dogs Lucky, Flo

Lucky and Flo, Malaysia's most celebrated sniffer dogs, were given a grand farewell on Monday after a five-month stint in helping the authorities bust pirate syndicates of optical discs.

The two black labradors from Ireland, specially trained to detect the polycarbonate and special solvent used in the manufacturing of optical discs, received medals from the Malaysian government at the end of their tour of duty.

Codenamed Operation Double-Trouble, they are the initiative of the California-based Motion Picture Association, which managed to persuade Malaysia to become the first country to deploy the canines on a trial basis to combat disc piracy.

Malaysia once held the dubious honor of being the world's No. 1 exporter of pirated DVDs and VCDs. China has since assumed that title, but pirated discs are still abundant in Malaysia.

Since Lucky and Flo were first deployed to work on March 13, they have proven themselves to be a force to be reckoned with, facilitating the arrest of 26 people and seizures worth over $6 million.

Among those items confiscated were more than 1.6 million optical discs, three DVD replicating machines and 97 CD-R burners.

The dogs actually cannot distinguish between fake or real discs but their forte lies in sniffing out secret hideouts that law enforcement officials could not detect.

Their successes so shook up syndicate bosses that they reportedly put a 100,000 ringgit ($29,000) bounty on the dogs' heads.

While Lucky and Flo may be leaving Malaysia for New York, the next stop in their piracy fighting tour of duty, Deputy Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister S. Veerasingam warned pirates that the battle is not over.

''The dogs' ability has inspired the ministry to try this new approach by setting up a K9 (canine) unit,'' he said at the farewell party for Lucky and Flo.

MPA will again donate two labradors to the ministry to be trained to combat disc piracy.

Malaysia has also recently established a special intellectual property court to deal with IP infringement cases.

According to an MPA statement, piracy, including internet piracy, cost MPA studios $6.1 billion in lost revenue worldwide in 2005.

Last year, MPA's operations in Asia-Pacific region investigated more than 30,000 piracy cases and assisted law enforcement officials in conducting nearly 12,400 raids.

These had resulted in seizures of more than 35 million illegal optical discs, 50 factory optical disc production lines and 4,482 optical disc burners as well as the initiation of more than 11,000 legal actions.

MPA is a group that represents six of the world's biggest movie studios -- Buena Vista International Inc., Paramount Pictures Corp., Twentieth Century Fox International Corp., Universal International Films, Sony Pictures Inc. and Warner Bros. Pictures International.