To DVD or not to DVD

A friend of mine told me once about the link between the pirate VCD/DVD trade here in Malaysia and underworld-type activities, specifically the kidnapping of young girls for the purpose of prostitution. Never checked it out (How could I? Do I go up to the stalls and ask "Eh, you ada bagi duit sama itu gangster pelacur ka?" - just not done, my friend...), so I never really managed to confirm her claim.

But thinking about the possibility of it being true, that the RM5-8 one spends on watching a movie off a pirated DVD (and ripping off the likes of Warner Brothers) actually had such far reaching impact turn me off buying for quite some time now. As I recall, there was a campaign some time back where Siti Nurhaliza actually shed a tear or two thinking about how she lost a couple
hundred thousand (out of her many millions) through these pirates. To be honest, many really didn't care much about ripping off already rich people.

Going back to this possible underworld link - are we, as Malaysians, so starved that we can't play our part and not support such activities? As it is, these stalls are illegal, but most of us think that we're not hurting anyone, except for already rich people. But shouldn't the remote possibility of it having links to the sex trade be enough for us to put a moral stand and eradicate demand altogether? I think I sold my case to a colleague - though he too had doubts about these claims. Good to know that even the possibility of truth converted his shopping into mere browsing.