Hi there,
This is certainly a sleepy part of this site, so here's a little something to wake us all up!
Recently I've been going through kind of a personal dilemna. Nothing serious... it's about movies and dvd's.
I live in Pakistan, and as some of you are aware, in this part of the world, piracy runs rampant. There are HUGE business (DVD sales outlets, DVD stamping factories, jacket printing companies, etc) that are thriving because of copyright infringements, and the volumes and values involved are so terribly high (we're talking in perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars annually) that the government is helpless to stop it.
In fact, because there are no movie theaters (well, a couple are starting to pop up in recent times, but no real nice ones), it amazes me how, say a movie like MI3, shows up here on the shelves within 3 days of wide release in the US. In certain cases of big movies (Goblet of Fire comes to mind), we end up seeing it a couple days BEFORE the official release.
How is that done? Well, a lot of times, you end up getting the copies that are meant for the academy or other awards shows. Sometimes, you get pirated prints that are actualy filmed by someone sitting in the movie theater (It's hilarious sometimes, when the guy in front of them gets up for popcorn! ops: ) But most of the times, it's a copy of some original master, so it's a dvd without the any of the special features, etc. But it's got amazing picture quality and great sound.
However, once the movie has officially been released on DVD in the US, we get it here in all its glory. Special features, extras, subtitles, dts... the works!
And all for the wonderful price of no more than a buck 10. Yup, that's all it costs, US Dollars One and Cents Ten only!
About 5-6 years ago, a company came into existence over here to distribute official copies of movies from Columbia / Tristar, Universal, and a couple other studios. Man oh man, not only did these guys lose a TON of their inventory and make HUGE losses... they also used to get death threats on a daily basis. It was just insane.
Needless to say, they are no longer around...
On a personal note, I can't stand piracy... As a businessman, I really appreciate the true pain of not getting paid for what you've created / worked on. However, I can just boycott these, and let my brand new BenQ DLP and 119" motorized screen sit idle... NOT!
Just thought I'd share... Any comments, people?
Fauzi
This is certainly a sleepy part of this site, so here's a little something to wake us all up!
Recently I've been going through kind of a personal dilemna. Nothing serious... it's about movies and dvd's.
I live in Pakistan, and as some of you are aware, in this part of the world, piracy runs rampant. There are HUGE business (DVD sales outlets, DVD stamping factories, jacket printing companies, etc) that are thriving because of copyright infringements, and the volumes and values involved are so terribly high (we're talking in perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars annually) that the government is helpless to stop it.
In fact, because there are no movie theaters (well, a couple are starting to pop up in recent times, but no real nice ones), it amazes me how, say a movie like MI3, shows up here on the shelves within 3 days of wide release in the US. In certain cases of big movies (Goblet of Fire comes to mind), we end up seeing it a couple days BEFORE the official release.
How is that done? Well, a lot of times, you end up getting the copies that are meant for the academy or other awards shows. Sometimes, you get pirated prints that are actualy filmed by someone sitting in the movie theater (It's hilarious sometimes, when the guy in front of them gets up for popcorn! ops: ) But most of the times, it's a copy of some original master, so it's a dvd without the any of the special features, etc. But it's got amazing picture quality and great sound.
However, once the movie has officially been released on DVD in the US, we get it here in all its glory. Special features, extras, subtitles, dts... the works!
And all for the wonderful price of no more than a buck 10. Yup, that's all it costs, US Dollars One and Cents Ten only!
About 5-6 years ago, a company came into existence over here to distribute official copies of movies from Columbia / Tristar, Universal, and a couple other studios. Man oh man, not only did these guys lose a TON of their inventory and make HUGE losses... they also used to get death threats on a daily basis. It was just insane.
Needless to say, they are no longer around...
On a personal note, I can't stand piracy... As a businessman, I really appreciate the true pain of not getting paid for what you've created / worked on. However, I can just boycott these, and let my brand new BenQ DLP and 119" motorized screen sit idle... NOT!
Just thought I'd share... Any comments, people?
Fauzi
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