Swiss Stop Piracy Day

Would you have guessed that today, October 25th 2008, is the official STOP PIRACY DAY? Neither would I but the posters and tri-folds at my local shopping centre sure were making sure that I noticed.

The reason I'm a bit perturbed by this is that it talks about counterfeit medications and places them under the piracy umbrella. While they are technically correct in calling it piracy (in the modern use of the term) their campaign just comes across as somewhat dishonest when the tri-fold describes Stop Piracy as “the Swiss platform against counterfeiting and piracy of intellectual property such as software, music, movies and medications.”

I'm probably not alone in the opinion that there might just be a little bit of a difference in degree with these offenses. Of course, alerting people to the dangers of certain pills from questionable sources is important and a good thing but it just leaves a bad aftertaste if the first thing one sees when one goes to their homepage is an invitation for a contest to win a trip to Warner Bros. Studios in LA. No, really:

Screenshot from stop-piracy.ch.