Some thoughts about “pirated DVD” issue in China.
Although going to the cinema is becoming a part of local peoples’ life, every year the film company still loses a lot of money because of the pirated DVD market. Undoubtfully, the price of film ticket is the first aspect to be regarded. On the one hand, in China, it will usually cost you 50-60 yuan to buy a ticket, which is about 9-10 NZD. Cheap? Maybe. But this price is only available at some casual times. What about prime times? It will cost you much more, even double sometimes. (So in china, it is not a wise choice to take your girlfriend to the cinema, unless you have to. J ) Otherwise, we do have some half- price shifts. But all of them are available on the morning of a certain weekday. Jesus! Who’s gonna see the film at that time??? On the other hand, the price of the pirated DVD is extremely low. You can buy two pirated DVD with a 2 dollar NZ coin. And the point is, all of them are in very good conditions, just like the official ones. If not, you can exchange with the seller until you are satisfied with your choices. Furthermore, an official DVD is about 20-30 yuan. Of course, it is cheaper than going to the cinema. But, with that amount of money, you can purchase 4-6 pirated DVD.
Secondly, in China, the audiences do not have many choices in the film market. Only a few American and European commercial films will be released in China each year. For example, the audiences have no opportunity to view the whole Lord of The Rings trilogy, if they don’t buy the pirated DVDS. Because the first two film of the trilogy is never being shown on the big screen in China. What if a film you are really interested in is not gonna released in the cinema, what are you going to do??? Obviously, most of the people will go to the pirated DVD shop. On some level, this is one of the motivations of purchasing pirated DVDs. Almost all the people know supporting pirated DVD market is not a right thing to do. But they don’t have choice. The quantity of official released film in China is not able to meet the public demand. There is still a long way to go. We have to be patient.
Jxu063
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I do think that the Lord of The Ring trilogy had been screened in China. But I agree that the pirate DVDs exist for a reason. The cinema industry in China have only get away with state control and entered in free market in last 2 or 3 decades. So a fully functioned market is not yet established. Compare to American film market the choice is very limited. There are about 10 block busters in a year with big budget in mainland china that can make some profit and the rest of the films are in the category of “not worth mention” both in the scale of production and box office sense. And the type of film is relative limited too. The blockbusters are mainly material arts films or action movies by famous director aiming at Hollywood market. There is practically no teens or children film. Art house and experimental films are increasing in number these recent years but the problem is that their audiences is limited and thus do not have a good box office performance though it can be benefit in the long run. There is a quota of 20 imported films per year and usually there are big hit such as pirates of Caribbean. If one interested in foreign art cinema, there is literally impossible to see one in the big screen or in the official released DVD, since the market of those kind is not yet been nurtured. One has to turn to pirate DVDs to find what they want.
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