洛杉矶时报 来中国找寻还没发布的DVD

美国音像店有新发布的部分。中国音像店有还没有发布的部分。

　　在最近一个周末，四个人进入一家商店，店员把他们带到门后一个壁橱大小的房间。从地板到天花板，架子上满是最新的好莱坞电影，包括刚刚在一周前抵达中国影院的《料理鼠王》——它的DVD要到1月才出。家资商还有整季度的美国电视剧《明星伙伴》和《格雷的解剖》等。每张碟都是偷卖的，只要1.33美元。

　　关上门后，这个房间就隐蔽了。但在北京这是几乎人人都知道的秘密——当中还包括两名来自华盛顿及香港的律师，以及两名来自的电影界最大的贸易集团美国电影协会的两名代表。他们去那里向记者展示这家声名狼藉的黑市DVD店。这家店常常遭到突击，自2005年以来已经有14次了，因此它获得“丹的店”的昵称，这个昵称是根据美国电影协会首席执行官丹·格利克曼（Dan Glickman）的名字而起的。

　　这家店是好莱坞在中国广大而潜在有利的中国市场遭遇盗版的挫败的象征。它浓缩了美国电影业认为中国不公平的一切地方：政府对繁荣的黑市睁只眼闭只眼，同时限制电影、DVD和音乐的进口。

　　在中国出售的电影大约93%是盗版的，黑市光碟在商店里出售，还有大批小贩在地铁站推着自行车叫卖。还有人在家中交货。

　　根据LEK咨询公司代表电影协会所作的研究，在2005年，因为中国的地下DVD买卖和互联网电影下载，全球电影业损失了大约27亿美元。这个数字沉重地打击了中国自己的电影制造商和发行商，而作为该贸易集团成员的六个美国制片厂损失了2440万美元。

　　但美国制片厂认为中国是一个潜力巨大的市场，并努力游说让该国改善版权保护。布什政府今年已经向世贸组织报告两起对中国的投诉，指责这个亚洲国家没能支持国际法，没能充分保护版权电影、音乐和软件。中国官方通过新华社声明他们在知识产权保护方面取得了很大的进步。

　　根深蒂固的政治、经济和文化问题令中国DVD市场合法化的前景变得非常不可能。

　　根据检验电影盗版对中国经济效应的报告，一些获得政府许可的DVD复制设施是盗版的罪魁。根据中国社科院美国经济研究中心及世界经济与政治研究所2006年的报告，774家注册的生产设备生产光碟的能力远远超出许可的。

　　生产非法DVD逃避专利费和税收的厚利业务对那些得到政府许可的工厂来说有巨大的吸引力，把过剩的生产能力用于供应黑市。其他盗版光碟是有广东的非法工厂生产的，或者从香港和澳门走私进来。

　　审查也助长了盗版。中国阻碍了许多电影的进口，让黑市成为观众一睹为快的第一机会。

　　美国电影协会和其他贸易集团提倡政府更严厉地打击盗版，实行更严厉的罚款。它们援引例子说明政府的合作发挥关键作用帮助其他盗版盛行的地方（例如香港和台湾）制止盗版。

　　然而，清华大学新闻与传播学教授尹鸿（Yin Hong）表示，这种战略无视了中国年轻经济体之间的差别，农村和城市居民之间有巨大的收入差距，香港和台湾的消费者有更多的可支配收入。而且香港和台湾地方小，规管也更严格。

　　华纳和索尼的执行官们表示，尽管如此，5500万城市中国人当中有一个商业机会，他们和美国城市居民一样对大屏幕电视和家庭影院很有激情。这些新兴的富裕消费者愿意出多出一点钱拿到质量好的DVD。

　　挑战是：首先建立合法的分销渠道，然后教导消费者到哪里可以购买到经过授权的DVD。但是，建立一个合法的DVD市场仍然是一个高难度的任务。顾客不会费心查看正牌商品。他们为什么要这样呢？索尼的《蜘蛛侠－2》卖4.68美元，而新出的《蜘蛛侠－3》的盗版只要2美元。（原标题：电影还没有出DVD？你可以在中国找到它；作者：Dawn C. Chmielewski）

Film not out yet on DVD? You can find it in China

Despite crackdowns, nearly all movies sold there are counterfeit.

By Dawn C. Chmielewski, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

November 12, 2007

BEIJING -- American video stores have new-release sections. Chinese video stores have not-yet-released sections.

On a recent weeknight here, four people entered a neighborhood shop, where a clerk escorted them through a back door to a closet-sized room.

Floor-to-ceiling shelves brimmed with some of the latest Hollywood movies, including "Ratatouille," which had just reached Chinese theaters a week earlier and wasn't due out on DVD until January. Also filling the shelves were entire seasons of such popular American TV shows as "Entourage" and "Grey's Anatomy."

Each disc was bootlegged, selling for as little as $1.33.

Closed off from the rest of the store, the room looked hidden. But it's secret to almost no one here -- least of all this group that included two entertainment lawyers from Washington and Hong Kong as well as two representatives of the Motion Picture Assn., the film industry's biggest trade group.

They were there to show a reporter the notorious black-market DVD store, Beijing Yongsheng Century International Cultural Co. It has been raided so often -- 14 times since 2005 -- that it's acquired the nickname "Dan's Shop," after Dan Glickman, chief executive of the Motion Picture Assn. of America.

The store is symbolic of Hollywood's frustration with piracy in the vast and potentially lucrative Chinese market. It epitomizes everything the American film industry considers unfair about the country: a government that turns a blind eye to the flourishing black market while restricting imports of movies, DVDs and music.

About 93% of the movies sold in China are counterfeit -- black-market discs are sold in stores and by legions of roaming vendors who peddle them at subway stations and from their bicycles. Some make home deliveries.

In 2005, the most recent year for which figures are available, the global film industry lost about $2.7 billion in potential sales to underground DVD sales and Internet movie downloads in China alone, according to research conducted by LEK Consulting on behalf of the Motion Picture Assn. The toll fell most heavily on China's own filmmakers and distributors, while the six American studios that are members of the trade group lost $244 million.

But the U.S. studios see China as a potentially huge market for their films and are lobbying hard to make the country improve copyright protections.

"There is some improvement, and some enforcement acts have been taken, but by and large the number of pirated product on the street hasn't dissipated at all," Glickman said in a phone interview from Hong Kong, where he was meeting with senior government officials. "It's just this constant challenge for us."

Representatives of the Chinese agencies that oversee the film industry declined interview requests.

The Bush administration this year has lodged two complaints against China with the World Trade Organization, accusing the Asian nation of failing to uphold international law by inadequately protecting copyrighted movies, music and software. The office of the U.S. trade representative alleged that import restrictions and lax law enforcement, including high thresholds for prosecution, have allowed counterfeiting to flourish in China. The case is pending.

In public statements through the New China News Agency, officials say they have made significant progress on intellectual property rights issues.

The Supreme People's Court said courts at all levels last year heard 769 criminal intellectual property rights cases, a 52% increase from 2005, and sentenced 1,212 people, a 62% jump.

In one-high profile copyright crackdown last year, the government seized 58 million pirated CDs, DVDs, computer programs and books. A big-time CD maker and smuggler in southern China was sentenced to life in prison.

The increased enforcement is obvious to film expert Yin Hong, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Until recently, he said, most DVD stores sold pirated discs almost exclusively, but now many in Beijing and Shanghai sell only licensed discs.

"This is much better than in the past," Yin said. "But China is such a big country with such a huge population that things are very complicated and hard to manage."

The entrenched political, economic and cultural issues make the prospects of a legitimate Chinese marketplace for DVDs highly unlikely.

Some DVD replicating facilities licensed by the government are culprits in piracy, according to one report that examined the effect of movie counterfeiting on China's economy. The 2006 study -- by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Center for American Economic Studies and its Institute of World Economics and Politics -- found that the 774 registered production facilities had the capacity to make far more discs than are licensed.

The lucrative business of producing the illegal DVDs, which avoid royalty payments and taxes, is a strong incentive for the government-approved facilities that make legitimate DVDs to use the extra capacity to supply the black market.

Other pirated discs in China are made in illegal factories in the southern province of Guangdong or smuggled in from Hong Kong and Macao.

Censorship also fuels piracy. China blocks the import of many films, based on their content. That leaves the black market as the first opportunity for audiences to watch Jackie Chan's "Rush Hour 3" -- reportedly banned from theaters for its depiction of a Chinese organized gang family -- and the only way to see the uncut version of Taiwanese director Ang Lee's sexually explicit film, "Lust, Caution."

"The restrictions on the release of new foreign films in cinemas give pirates a temporary market monopoly," said Michael C. Ellis, director of the Asia-Pacific region for the Motion Picture Assn.

The association and other trade groups advocate more rigorous government enforcement against piracy and stiffer penalties. They cite government cooperation as playing a pivotal role in helping other piracy-friendly areas such as Hong Kong and Taiwan put a stop to it.

That strategy, however, ignores the significant differences between China's young economy, which has vast income gaps between urban and rural residents, and the economies of Hong Kong and Taiwan, where consumers have more discretionary income, noted Yin, the professor. Hong Kong and Taiwan also are smaller and more tightly regulated.

Executives for Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures Entertainment say there's nonetheless a business opportunity among the 550 million urban Chinese who, like their American counterparts, share a passion for big-screen TVs and home movies. These newly affluent consumers are willing to pay a slight premium for a decent quality DVD that doesn't abruptly quit in the final chapter of the film, like pirated discs sometimes do.

The challenge: First establish legitimate distribution channels, then teach consumers where they can buy the licensed DVDs.

"Let's start telling people, this emerging middle class, that real product is great, real product is the best quality," said Matt Brown, an executive vice president at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Both Sony and CAV Warner Home Entertainment Co. -- a Shanghai-based joint venture between Warner Bros. and China Audio Video, a publishing house affiliated with the Ministry of Culture -- are working separately toward creating outlets for legitimate DVDs.

Both sell licensed DVDs through Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the French supermarket chain Carrefour and the Chinese bookstore chain Xinhua. They also sell through Joyo Amazon, a Beijing-based online bookseller that delivers discs the next day. Sony promotes new DVD releases through popular Chinese movie websites such as Mtime.

Warner Bros., the first Hollywood studio to release a DVD version of a film in China on the same day as its U.S. theatrical release, has developed an elaborate pricing and timing strategy to beat pirates to market with DVDs of movies such as "Happy Feet."

"We're a long way from the tipping point," CAV Warner managing director Tony Vaughn said. "But the momentum is in the right direction."

Now it's not alone. Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation SKG officials traveled to Beijing last week to announce that the studios would sell bargain-priced DVDs through CAV Warner's 20,000 retail outlets in 50 Chinese cities. The new releases will retail for $2.75. This is the first time that Paramount's legitimate DVDs, such as "Transformers," will be sold in China.

Still, creating a legitimate DVD market remains a tall task.

The five-story Silk Street Market is one of Beijing's biggest counterfeit bazaars. Booths bulge with cheap knock-off clothing, eyewear, shoes and watches, and clerks hawk their wares in five languages to the tourists who arrive by bus.

One booth offers licensed DVDs on its shelves, with holograms etched into the plastic shrink-wrap as proof of authenticity, and they're purely window dressing. Customers flip through stacks of DVD sleeves on the front counter, then place their orders for bootleg discs that clerks retrieve from the back.

Customers don't bother walking the aisles to inspect the collection of licensed merchandise.

And why should they? A legal copy of Sony's "Spider-Man 2" sells for $4.68, while a bootleg copy of the newer "Spider-Man 3" goes for $2.

dawn.chmielewski @latimes.com