04/02/05
12:09:37 pm, Categories: Entertainment
Fake DVDs in Shanghai
Slate has an article about fake DVDs in China's bustling metropolis.
One of the expats at our table had amassed 200. Another, 400. All looked at me funny when I asked whether anyone had any moral or legal qualms about this. Later, in Beijing, when I asked the same question of a business-school professor, the head of a trade organization, and two CEOs?the sorts of serious people, who, in the U.S., might become apoplectic about, say, file-sharing?I saw the same quizzical look, with one of the CEOs adding that having to spend more than $2 for a DVD or $10 for Windows XP was an outrage. At Sasha's, the expats explained that buying real DVDs wasn't an option, especially for the Chinese, because real DVDs cost 10 times more and weren't even available. (The TV producer claimed she knew of a store that carried them, but the others disputed this.) Fake DVDs, moreover, often were real DVDs: The same factories that produced and shipped real ones during the day produced and shipped fake ones at night.
The writer also makes a point that I do in my previous article, Microsoft has a really good deal for Chinese poor, in that some of the damages from "lost sales" would never have been sales to begin with.
I guess I'm not the only one who loves pirated media.
