Posted on 02/23/2005 4:26:31 PM PST by snowsislander
Faced with the growing concern of DVD piracy, one of Hollywood's biggest movie studios is taking steps to fight the sale of illegally manufactured home videos in China.
In the coming months, Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. Entertainment plans to release dozens of its films on DVD to retailers in China -- at deeply discounted prices. The studio's hope: that cheap and legitimate DVDs will compete effectively enough with their bootlegged counterparts to offset the losses the company has weathered from piracy.
Warner's move is among the most-aggressive step taken by a U.S. studio to hasten a legitimate DVD market in China. And it is emblematic of an industry-wide problem that has grown in recent years with the popularity of DVDs. The discs have been a savior for Hollywood, generating profit margins of 50% or more and providing a welcome bulwark to the hardships of the often-unpredictable movie business. But they are also far easier to copy than their predecessor -- the video cassette -- and have therefore made way for piracy.
In China piracy has been rampant. Although the Motion Picture Association of America and U.S. regulators are trying to crack down on bootleggers, legal inquiries may not be able to root out the problem. So, Warner is trying to change already entrenched consumer habits by competing with bootleggers on price.
...
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Good luck limosine liberals. What are they going to do send Alec Baldwin and Tim Robbins over to clean the place up? :)
LOL.. what you said... Haaaaaaaaaaaaa...
I'm sure China is going to be all kinds of accommodating of this plan. /yeah right
No, I wouldn't imagine that they would -- most businesses tend to charge what the market will bear in order to maximize profits.
I didn't even realize that those were sold, but a quick froogle found a full-featured region-free dvd-recorder/player at MacMall for only $179.
[ Sorry, the link was broken... DVR is here. ]
It will just make it worse and we pay the same.I Guess WB only respects the Commie market.
It's not just a cae of DVDs being copied. I have a good friend who frequently goes to China on business and who purchaes ripped DVDs at about $2.00 apiece. I saw one. It wasn't copied from another DVD. Instead, the pirate set up a camcorder in the back of a theater and taped the movie off the screen. It was easy to seee since there was a color shift in the film characteristic of such taping and I could see heads moving in front of the screen from time to time. The sudio, however, worked well and the lip synch was perfect. All in all, I'd rather pay to rent the genuine product.
Don't worry. The Chinese will quickly figure out a way to hack these DVDs and produce Region 1 copies from them, which ought to be a lot better than the ripped DVDs they sell now for about $2.00 apiece. Please see my previous post.
Actually, full quality, region 1 DVDs are already widely available in China for a buck a piece. I picked up a couple dozen on my last trip, including a few pristine copies of movies that hadn't been released domestically on DVD! Walk down the street in Shanghai and there are stacks of them in every corner shop. It's really quite amazing, and the government doesn't seem to care.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.