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Wednesday, April 19, 2006
PIRATES OF THE CINEMA IN CHINA  Wikipedia should have my picture next to "Movie Nut" online. I used to go to three or four pic's a week in the U.S.. I saw them all: the Good, the Bad and the Really Ugly flicks. It is some kind of tough here in Guangzhou. There are several theatres that show subtitled movies, but it is as pricey here as it is Stateside. It costs me 5% of my monthly income to see a show and that is sans popcorn and drinks. Many stores sell what I assume to be legal reprints of cinematic classics. they are pretty cheap: $3 to $5 US dollars. And one new release, if you can find one, on DVD will run about 20% of MY gross income. The bootleg shops sell movies that are yet to be seen or are still showing in Western theatres (some are Academy preview copies) for as low as $.50 cents. There are dozens of sales outlets and they are not hard to find. I went on a legitimate hunt the week after Ang Lee won Best Director for all of his old movies. what I found were colorful boxed sets of his entire portfolio, including Brokeback Mountain, all already available for about $6.00. Uh, probably not a deal brokered with the Motion Picture Academy.... The Canton trade fair is in town and to keep up appearances, in the wake of an announced crackdown on piracy, the high profile DVD shops are closed in the high traffic areas. They will re-open in a couple of weeks. In the interim the locals still have dozens of haunts where every top film and current TV show are readily available. Prices for visiting foreigners are double the usual fare. I have long been a staunch advocate of intellectual property rights and copyright protection. But, I admit I have to a growing case of cataracts when I recognize the hunger for Western entertainment that is completely out of reach for the average Chinese citizen. The TV here is censored, and navigating to information on the Internet (thank you once again Yahoo!, Google, and Cisco!) is a high stakes game in itself. It has become increasingly difficult for me to chastise a college student for buying a Golden Globe winning movie with a days food monies when he is only looking to satiate his curiosity about America or learn more about a world long closed to him. I think the answer will come with open access to TV, Cable shows, and faster approval of movies coming into the mainland. It is not going to happen very soon. And continued increases in minimum wage (about $80-$100 a month in urban areas) will slowly help as well, but.... Yes, the pirates making these knock-offs and their connections in Hollywood and elsewhere are criminals. But, there has to be a middle ground somewhere to allow for the spread of information. Nope, no answers spring to mind for this post. what does occur to me is that most Westerners should counting their blessings as they demonize the sale of illegal CDs and DVDs here in the PRC. Just a fast aside: Carnival of the Banned Blogs will be in the next two days. Thanks for all the interest! China Asia Blogging China Blogs China Blog Blogging Music Downloads Copyright Protection Pirating Banned Blogs TLB Ecosystem Carnival of Banned Blogs Lonnie Hodge Movies DVDs Blogger News Network is advertiser-supported, and your visits to our advertisers help BNN to meet its expenses. Help keep us afloat! posted by Lonnie at 10:28 AM |
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