JEDDAH, 21 February 2006 — Don’t be shocked if a presentably dressed, Arab woman propositions you in downtown Jeddah. She’s likely to be offering you the latest blockbuster film.

Using the female element for marketing pirated DVDs and CDs is the latest trend to avoid Ministry of Culture and Information officials who are carrying out massive surprise raids as part of a crackdown on the illegal trade of pirated media.

The ladies look very much Saudi — they wear the abaya (body cover) and the tarha (head cover) in an elegant way — but their distinctive accent reveals that they come from other Arab countries.

Arab News approached one of the female dealers, who mostly roam next to Corniche and Faisaliah shopping centers. She pulled out a few DVDs from her abaya and had a bigger collection inside her big purse.

She became nervous when asked about her origin and if she was working for someone. “This is all I have. You want to buy, or leave,” she said while turning her back.

Though it is still risky to deal with a woman in public, piracy sharks were willing to meet the challenge of deceiving authorities, who are less likely to search a woman, in order to grab a piece of the high market demand.

Customers were seen asking for the phone number of these female pirates, while others seemed to feign interest in the DVDs simply to begin a conversation with them.

Hamid, an Asian pirated-DVD dealer based in Balad area, said that he prefers the old-fashioned way of selling directly to loyal clients.

“Using women is not good, because they would attract the attention of the religious police,” he said, adding that he doesn’t expect this phenomenon to last for long.

Over the last year, seizures of pirated entertainment software, DVDs and business software around the Kingdom have been as large as 27 million copies, according to the latest report of the International Intellectual Property Alliance.

Losses caused by copyright piracy in the Kingdom are estimated at SR500 million a year, according to an official at the Ministry of Culture and Information.