HenryTo
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Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 11732
Location: Los Angeles, California
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 Posted: Sun May 22, 2005 1:49 pm Post subject: Chinese Pirates Hawk Latest 'Star Wars' |
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Hmmm... imagine vendors hawking these in NYC. Despite my bullishness on China, there are still much "re-educating" to do and many checks and balances (and laws and law enforcement agencies) to set up before China can be a global power. Thomas Friedman mentioned that the 1997 Asian Crisis happened because many of the industries and institutions of the countries involved were not designed to handle the money flows and the complexities of the global economy. It was analogous to a PC with an ever-improving processor but that stayed with an obsolete operating system such as DOS 3.3. China is very much in the same situation today.
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Chinese Pirates Hawk Latest 'Star Wars'
Sunday May 22, 1:33 pm ET
Counterfeiters Sell DVD Copies of New 'Star Wars' Movie in China, 3 Days After Film's Opening
BEIJING (AP) -- Counterfeiters were selling illegal DVD copies of the latest Star Wars movie on Beijing streets Sunday, just three days after the movie opened in Chinese cinemas.
The copies of "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith," priced at $2.40, were being offered by vendors out of shoulder bags on Beijing's main avenue. The pirate copies were slightly blurry but appeared not to have been filmed in a cinema, as many of China's imported fakes are.
The sales were taking place despite repeated Chinese promises to stamp out a thriving industry in copied goods that foreign companies say cost them billions of dollars a year in lost potential sales.
"Revenge of the Sith" opened Thursday on Chinese screens in a rare simultaneous opening with cinemas abroad.
Distributors hope that such worldwide premiers will defeat pirates by giving audiences in China and other countries a chance to see films before illegal copies could be made.
Studios complain that China has created a market for pirated movies by blocking or delaying release of many films in an effort to protect state-owned studios.
Pirated movies sold in China are made from videotapes shot in cinemas abroad or from preview copies given out to film distributors and others in the industry.
China says it is trying to prevent piracy, with some 9,000 cases passing through its courts in 2004. In one highly publicized case last month, a Shanghai court sentenced two American men to prison terms of up to 2 1/2 years for selling Chinese pirated DVDs to customers overseas on Internet sites. |
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