"Piracy sure beats manual labor"

July 8, 2002 2:16 PM

"Piracy sure beats manual labor" Can China's Piracy industry be stopped? Should it be stopped? Will this be the fate of all copyrighted material? Lisa Movius offers few answers, but gives a pretty good overview of the situation.
posted by Bag Man (12 comments total)

Naughty pirates.
posted by timeistight at 2:23 PM on July 8, 2002

opening a briefcase to reveal a selection of imitation name-brand perfumes.

Scents cannot be copyrighted. Since no one actually sees the bottle of perfume but yourself, there's no reason to buy a knock-off Calvin Klein with a fake "Calvin Klein" logo.

I don't see how this is the fate of the free world based on a communist countries non-enforcement of piracy. As the article states further, banned books are also pirated, which if we're lucky, will lead to a democratic revolution.

Imitation goods will always be a problem to poverty stricken countries, but as they gain prosperity they'll want the real thing. A knock-off Kate Spade purse isn't the same as the real thing, and it's noticeable. The sin of greed will be replaced by vanity... mmmm...
posted by geoff. at 2:28 PM on July 8, 2002

Apart from the historical guff, you could replace China with Chile in that article and most would still hold true - and I suspect the rest of S (+central) America is worse. Is it the same in the former USSR? And Asia, apart from the richer rim economies? Is it, in other words, only the USA and W Europe where piracy isn't the norm? And am I deliberately ignoring Australians/Kiwis and Canadians just to annoy them?

PS Knock-off digital goods are identical to the real thing.
posted by andrew cooke at 2:34 PM on July 8, 2002

Knock-off digital goods are identical to the real thing.

Not precisely. The predominant example, the mp3, is definitely not an identical copy of the .wav file contained on the original compact disc. Further, the copy on the compact disc is not, to my knowledge, a perfect copy of the original master. If you have a good mp3 with few audio artifacts, it may be indistinguishable from the real thing on crappy computer speakers. That does not, however, make it an identical copy.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 2:53 PM on July 8, 2002

Whether or not a CD is a precise copy of a master tape is a side issue – consumers don't have access to master tapes. A copy of a CD has exactly the same digital information as the original CD.
posted by timeistight at 2:58 PM on July 8, 2002

Not all that reaches the stalls of the very public and wide open Far East markets is a knock-off. Many labels manufacture their products in the region. Boxes fall off the truck constantly. Real product gets mixed up with the knock-offs and before you know it spotting the goodies between the crap becomes a cultural staple much more important than fighting piracy.

Additionally, if you work in a sweatshop making nike shoes, you're gonna want a pair too. And someone will eventually find a way to sell them to you. Don't Blame Mao, Confucious or Marco Polo for piracy. Blame capitalism.
posted by magullo at 4:09 PM on July 8, 2002

you could replace China with Chile in that article and most would still hold true - and I suspect the rest of S (+central) America is worse.

Amen, Andrew. Here in Central America no one buys original video games, for instance - walk into any respectable mall -luxorious, expensive brick and mortar malls, for God sakes- and you'll see piles of ripoff Playstation games being legally sold for pennies on the dollar. That's the only thing that can explain why most every kid here owns video games (and its respective Playstation chinese clone consoles) The absolute lack of local enforcement laws on this respect, of course, doesn't help a bit, as well as the widespread culture of the cheap. That explains our 70% incidence of software piracy as well. Although intellectual property helpers have been enforcing the strength of the law on some companies as of late, there's still many issues beyond its control.
posted by betobeto at 4:18 PM on July 8, 2002

you could replace China with Chile in that article and most would still hold true - and I suspect the rest of S (+central) America is worse.

Certainly. When I travelled to Nepal I was amazed at how well they could imitate sewn in logos of major sporting good brands. What was also interesting was that there was little difference in quality between the knock off and the original.

So many things are prirated here you learn to look beyond the logo.

One of the first items I look for whenever I go to a market in Bangkok or Taipei are pirated DVD or VCDs. Other than the fact that the whole experience is so surreal the only reason I repeatedly buy them there is simple economics. DVDs are too expensive and I wouldn't be able to afford them otherwise. Now if the price of DVD's were at an acceptable level I might give my money to the big media companies but until then it's either buy from the little guy so he can feed his family or do without.
posted by cmacleod at 9:46 PM on July 8, 2002

What was also interesting was that there was little difference in quality between the knock off and the original.

If the quality is pretty much the same between the knockoff and the original, why by the original as far as clothes go? The similar quality would point to the black market workers either pushing for less of a profit margin, or else not having to pass the cost of marketing onto the consumer.

The blackmarketeer (with clothing at least) should pull down the cost of the original item in time- but sadly they probably wouldn't.

I wouldn't be that suprised to see more pirated music in the US as CD prices continue to rise (now $15+ an album).

As for CD copies, each CD, if made correctly, is essentially a copy of the master copy of the CD. This isn't to be confused with the master tapes of an album which would contain the roughly raw music from each song.
posted by drezdn at 10:51 PM on July 8, 2002

The author (AKA Big Business Apologist) is talking like every gwailo who visits China for two days and thinks she can expound on its every social indiscretion with impunity.

You call it piracy, they call it business of providing what the customer wants.
posted by timyang at 3:50 AM on July 9, 2002

DVDs are too expensive and I wouldn't be able to afford them otherwise

Are you a resident, or is this while you are travelling? If a resident, ok, if travelling, well you choose where and how to spend your money, eh?
posted by jkaczor at 8:19 AM on July 9, 2002

Here are (slightly old) Business Software Alliance estimates for business software piracy. They mean (if I have this right) that, to take the worst case, 97 percent of all business software in use in Vietnam in 2000 was pirated.

country, 1999, 2000
Vietnam, 98%, 97%
China, 91%, 94%
Indonesia, 85%, 89%
Ukraine/Other CIS, 90%, 89%
Russia, 89%, 88%
Lebanon, 88%, 83%
Pakistan, 83%, 83%
Bolivia, 85%, 81%
Qatar, 80%, 81%
Bahrain, 82%, 80%
Kuwait, 81%, 80%
Thailand, 81%, 79%
El Salvador, 83%, 79%
Nicaragua, 80%, 78%
Oman, 88%, 78%
Bulgaria, 80%, 78%
Romania, 81%, 77%
Guatemala, 80%, 77%
Paraguay, 83%, 76%
Jordan, 75%, 71%
Honduras, 75%, 68%
Costa Rica, 71%, 68%
Dominican Republic, 72%, 68%
Kenya, 67%, 67%
Nigeria, 68%, 67%
posted by pracowity at 8:54 AM on July 9, 2002