DVD piracy

[unixronin]

Piracy by the distributors, that is, in some telling comments during a discussion about Blu-Ray high-density DVDs:

"We sell 20,000 DVDs a year in China, and they're priced at just $4.99. Just to prove a point," [Andy] Setos [president of engineering at 20th Century Fox] said.

So if you can sell them at $4.99 each in China and still make a profit on it after shipping them clear to China (because I don't for one second believe you're selling them at a loss), how come they retail for $20 each in the US?  Did you ever consider that maybe that's why people pirate them?

And forget about playing that foreign DVD on your Blu-Ray DVD player.

On top of that, consumers should expect punishment for tinkering with their Blu-ray players, as many have done with current DVD players, for instance to remove regional coding.  The new, Internet-connected and secure players will report any "hack" and the device can be disabled remotely.

This, when they're debating whether to scrap regional coding anyway.  You'd think the decision would be an obvious one -- to anyone but Hollywood executives.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh, but they're not shipping them to China. They're making them there.

They really should go talk to Jim Baen about this whole "intellectual property" bushwah.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Actually, my bad. The media is made in Taiwan. Still a LOT closer than San Jose. They're not saying where they press'em... but I betcha they press the ones for the Chinese in China. Just like Toyota and Honda make their US-compliant cars here.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Point.
Still, if they can sell them for $4.99 in China and make a profit on it ....

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Remember. If they make'em there they're not paying Union Scale for the labor. And the consumer isn't paying in Yankee dollars either. For all we know the Chinese standard of living is such that five bucks, converted to yuan (about Y40) is to them what $20, or even $40, would be to us.

Hum. A little research reveals that Y40 will get you a very nice entree or dessert in a very nice restaurant. So roughly $8-9. Not much less than what you'd see in the can of beans rack here... and you're not paying as much proportionately for labor.

They're just charging what the market will bear, that's all. It's not that they're singling us round-eyes out to get ripped off, it's that they're being as greedy as they can and still move product.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That's true. Then again, if they're pressing them in China for the Chinese market, at Chinese labor costs, I'd be surprised if they're pressing them in Silicon Valley at Silicon Valley labor costs for the US market. Not that an automated pressing line costs them more than about fifty cents per disc even then.

You're dead on about the greed and charging what the market will bear, though.