A few months ago a friend emailed to say that he’d searched for me on twitter and found twenty accounts using my name, photo, and bio. I looked, and he was right: I was being impersonated. But here’s the thing: the actual twitter handle – the thing that starts with an @ – wasn’t some…
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More on stolen iPhones at Best Buy Shanghai (Xujiahui): the Gangster Factor
Late last week I posted in regard to a bizarre encounter I had with a ‘freelance’ salesman/thief attempting to sell stolen iPhones inside of the Best Buy located in Shanghai’s Xujiahui neighborhood. In response, over the weekend I received several comments, two phone calls, and one email suggesting that the man who approached me is…
Expo 2010 Counterfeits: The Walls Have Been Breached!
The superlatives attached to Expo 2010 – the Shanghai World’s Fair – are various and numerous: it is the biggest Expo site, with the most countries participating, and – guaranteed – the best attendance, in the history of the Expo movement. Less discussed, but just as notable, is the fact that Expo 2010 is the…
As Shanghai fakes its commitment to IP protection, I happen upon a Fake Swarovski Feeding Frenzy
I was passing through the Jing’an Temple metro station late this afternoon when I came across a frenzy of young women crouched down and clawing at something – a something that turned out to be boxes and boxes of fake Swarovski jewelry (note: my camera served to scatter many of the customers). Nothing unusual in…
What constitutes a Best Buy?
This afternoon, for the first time in months, I stopped by the Best Buy in Xujiahui (which happens to be the first Best Buy in China). And, while riding an escalator to the second floor, I saw something unexpected: roughly ten racks of CDs and DVDs. Real ones, not pirated ones. And they seem to…
The Fox News All Pirate Review.
This morning, a brief moment of culture shock when I read that Fox News’s Roger Friedman was fired for downloading, and reviewing, a copy of the yet-to-be-released summer blockbuster, Wolverine. If my American readers don’t feel similar shock at this relatively minor news, I suspect that – unlike me – they haven’t spent most of…
The Vancouver Sun’s Douglas Todd Stole My Photo [UPDATED!]
[FINAL UPDATE:Douglas Todd, the Vancouver Sun, and its owners – Canwest – have so far refused to answer my demands for payment. No surprise, and so be it. For now, I think it’s worth noting that Douglas Todd’s blog continues to post uncredited photos. That is to say – he continues to steal intellectual property…
Even Pirates Love a Film Festival.
Long-time residents of Shanghai know that – every June – the city’s multitude of pirate DVD shops close in advance of, and during, the Shanghai International Film Festival (five years I’ve been here, five years the shops have been shut down). That way, all of those foreign filmmakers and executives won’t see the thriving fake…
Even CD Pirates Get the $100/barrel Blues.
I’m going to be traveling for the next couple of days, and unlikely to post again before the end of the week. So, in parting, allow me to leave you with a curiosity. Recently I’ve found that Shanghai’s pirate CD industry is beginning to favor boxes made from fiberboard laminated with a fine wood grain…
Obama and Asian Americans
I’ve been in the US for a little over a week now, and – among other things – I’m overwhelmed by the wall-to-wall coverage of the US Presidential Race. Outside of a national disaster, I can’t think of such sustained, in-depth coverage of any other event in my lifetime. And yet, with so much coverage,…