China, The U.S. And DVD Piracy

The Chinese handed over Randolph Hobson Guthrie to U.S. authorities in Los Angeles to face multiple charges of copyright infringement last week. The Chinese convicted Guthrie of selling pirated DVDs and he’s to appear in U.S. federal court today for a bond hearing.

Once he’s done with the hearing, he’ll be whisked to Mississippi where he’ll face charges of money laundering, trafficking and copyright infringement. These charges stem from a sting operation in September 2003, when an undercover federal agent purchased counterfeit DVDs at Mississippi flea market. The money laundering charge carries a possible life sentence.

According to authorities, Guthrie and his cohort in crime, Abram Cody Thrush, had quite an operation running in China. They would make the DVDs there and then ship them all over the world. According to China Daily, the initial raid turned up 210,000 DVDs in three warehouses. Chinese courts said the operation sold 133,000 DVDs from November 2003 to July of 2004 for 3.3 million yuan or $406,000. He sold the DVDs for $3 each.

Guthrie moved his product via his now defunct website, ThreeDollarDVD.com and through the online auction house eBay. Apparently, an attorney for movie company MGM spotted an ad for Guthrie’s illicit enterprise. MGM then went to the MPAA, who, in turn, went to authorities in Shanghai.

Piracy of intellectual problem continues to grow in the U.S. and throughout the world. Software companies are facing many of the same issues as the movie industry. The movie industry says loses more than $3 billion a year in lost revenue. The software business lost $6.6 billion last year.

The piracy in China has become a real problem for the world’s most populous nation. The United States has even gone so far as to threaten to take the issue to the World Trade Organization. The MPAA president Dan Glickman said back in May that China had seized over 500 million discs in the last five years and it didn’t even make a dent in the piracy problem.

The web site DVD-Intelligence reported high-quality copies of “Star War: Revenge of the Sith” showed up on the streets of Beijing within days of its release and were selling for 85 cents a copy. It’s tough to justify $15 or $20 for a DVD when one can pick them up very inexpensively.

The basic problem in the end is economics. The MPAA, RIAA and the software industry will continue to have a constant problem. While various groups may have a right to profit from their intellectual property, good old free market capitalism tells us that as long as the market demands significantly cheaper products, there will be piracy.

The only way for these industries to deal with the extraordinarily high volume of piracy is to make their products inexpensive enough to undercut the illegal business. They have to remove the financial incentive to commit the act of piracy. Until that point, this piracy problem will continue to grow.

[Bytestopia]

Piracy ? Why ? It is all because of free trade or capitalist greed ? Or it is a matter of controlling the market?

If a product is sold in the states for $15.00, these products is converted to local currency equivalent amount to the USD when it is sold to anywhere in Asia.

Can Asia afford it like the Americans? $15.00 = SG$25.50, RM56.25, TH62.00 and so on. Most part of Asia are still earning an average income of less then US$500 a month for a Uni. Graduates. No one in Asia is paid in salary, income or in business as fair in US$ and 50:50 sharing actually.

This is how the Western world can enjoy cheap good like Nike Tee-Shirt for $15.00-$20.00 in USA. Or the Microsoft Windows XP Home version for $99.00 in the USA. Almost everything are made in Asia. Including these 2 products.

Worse of all, they are paid like $100-300 per month for a factory worker depending on the country location and standard of living. I came to know that if someone wants a job in Nike factories in Indonesia, they even have to pay an employment fee or even sleep with the supervisors before getting a job.

So how they can afford to buy the Nike Shoes that have a price tag of US$ living standard? Does that mean the, if someone cannot afford it has no rights to it? They have the rights to compete fairly in the world.

To me this is basically SLAVARY.

The free trade has been on the round table for years discussing on how to open up the market. When it start this year, the Western world put a stop to it in months.... not years...

Why? everyone claims that factories will close if we allow Chinese clothings to flood the market with any price at all. I thought the Western world want cheap products from slaves ? As cheap as you can imagine ?

Is this to some Nike factories or Adidas cannot compete? What about factories in Asia will also close if there is a stop to import Asian products? No one care about it or mention it? I thought they care about giving jobs to Asia?

If everyone wants to compete fairly, then they should not outsource their work to Asia and claiming that the Western world are providing works for people in Asia. If you want to provide work, then provide salary that are equivalent to their respective country. eg. Australia has a AU$7/ hour salary rate. Why pay someone in Indonesia for US$2-3 per day? and not /hour basis?

Does this mean:

The rich will always be rich,
and the poor will always be poor?

In other words, wearing a Nike shoe will be a disgrace because the one who made the shoes is a slave. I thought the slavary thing has been aborlish century back? I thought the world has been more pro human rights?

The whole thing about PIRACY will not exist if everyone is paid fairly, price are sold fairly. Free trade are what it is.

I am an Asian and I am pointing out my views as the Asian people to piracy, free trade, slavary and etc that have imposed to Asia.