[UPDATE: Following the post, the comment from RandyG is an absolute delight. A must-read.]
The not so dirty secret about China’s thriving pirate DVD industry is that – more often than not – the selection is rather thin, out-dated, of marginal quality, and heavily tilted toward bloody Hollywood blockbusters, films with “Shanghai” in the title, and anything slightly innuendo-ish.
Which is why Shanghai’s true cineastes eagerly await late December and the first sprinklings of award-season “screeners” in the city’s pirate shops. Basically, it goes like this: Oscar and Golden Globe voters receive high-quality DVD copies of films so that they can judge them, conveniently, in their home, and at their own pace. Then, for reasons known only to them and their gods, these same screeners pawn off the DVDs to pirates who – kindly – make copies available on the streets of Shanghai. Thus, for the last two weeks I’ve been enjoying soon-to-be award-winning fare unseen even by my cineaste friends back in the US. The only draw-back – really, it’s just an occasional interruption – is this message that appears throughout the screeners:
I’ll admit: before writing this post I was dubious about the prospect that Hollywood might actually go after the awards voters who transfer their watermarked, supposedly identifiable screeners to the pirates. But a brief search indicates that the studios have managed to track down some of the culprits. Too bad for them.
In either case, I’m not so naive as to believe this situation can last forever. And, like the strong dollar, screener season, too, will one day be no more than a fond memory. But until then – or, at least, until the weekend – I’ll be busy screening the early handicappers for this year’s Best Picture.
[Addendum: It was just brought to my attention that Me Old China wrote something similar to this post during last year’s screener season.]
O.K., so speaking of pirated copies…
When I returned from my last trip to China, back at the end of November, we were rapidly approaching the holiday of Hannukah. My wife was pleased to tell me that she had ordered a DVD set for my son and I of the whole series of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. She was also pleased with herself for having saved almost half off by buying the item from one of the merchants of Amazon.com. I was immediately suspicious and started to do a little research into this seller. I found several bad reviews for this merchant, but not enough to react until I saw the items.
Fast Forward one week and I am beginning to get gifts from my Chinese customers to celebrate the holiday season and I got a notice from the post office saying that I had a package for pickup that we from Mr. Gou from the “Department of Cultural Affairs” in Beijing and it said “Gift” on the package. My wife rushed to the postoffice to get the gift and to her surprise the “gift” was the DVD set that she had ordered from Amazon. It was a set of pirated DVDs that had been drop shipped from Beijing. Carried by not only the Chinese postal service, but the U.S. postal service as well. I immediately fired off a letter to the merchant with a 48 hour notice to correct this issue, to which I heard nothing. I then filed a complaint with Amazon’s A-Z guarentee program and waited patiently. (side note: if you ever file a claim on the A-Z gaurentee, do not do a charge back on your credit card or you will void their policy).
Magically, Amazon agreed with my claim within 2 days and I got a very mad email from the seller saying that they could not believe that Amazon had just taken their payment back and refunded to me. They demanded that I send the DVDs back to them at their Lousiville, KY address. I told them if they would send me the postage I would send the DVDs back to the place where I got them, Beijing!
This went back and forth for several more emails until I wore the merchant down and they told me to keep the DVDs that it was not worth the emotional stress of this issues to continue to fight.
I then settled back, cracked open the celephane and popped the first DVD into the player. It played wonderfully for the first 20 minutes and then it was down hill from there.
Here ends my story.
-RandyG