Psst! Eight Bits Gets You "The Two Towers" In China

rocodipoco writes "CNN reports on this article about DVDs of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" were available in Shanghai two weeks ago for about $1 a pop, according to one Western film industry executive who visited that city. The film opens in North America on December 18. Interviewed at the CineAsia movie convention, the executive said as many as 40 street vendors were openly offering DVDs outside a Shanghai mall; he declined their offers, and thus can't verify the quality of the counterfeit copies. I personally want to wait for the movie to hit the big screen...it's all about the suspense. What do others think?"

Comments

LotR...

[Hanno]

call me naive, but LotR is one of those movies that people don't _want_ to pirate.

I know several people who had a SVCD-rip of the full movie and yet they still got the full DVD set half a year later...

Re:LotR...

[Fweeky]

SVCD rips are usually approximately 300 x 200.

Er, if it's SVCD it's 480 x 576 PAL or 480 x 480 NTSC. Otherwise it's not an SVCD, it's just a random MPEG-2 stream burnt with the SVCD format.

A good SVCD will blow up just fine, especially on a TV.

Don't mistake TeleSync VCD's for DVDrip SVCD's. Just like there's plenty of crappy, low resolution, poorly encoded DivX's, the same can be said for SVCD.

No proof

[MavEtJu]

he declined their offers, and thus can't verify the quality of the counterfeit copies.

Talking about making a fool of himself...

All about the suspense?!?

[trotski]

Dude, read the book....

Suspense is sitting at the edge of your seat wondering whats going to happen next. I'm gonna go out on a limb here, but I think most people reading slashdot are going in to these movies knowing more or less whats goign to happen. The suspense factor just isn't going to be there.

I think the exciting part about seeing these movies is comparing how the movie compares to what the story looked like in your own imagination. Just as an example, I pictured the great river as a river as wide as the Columbia, winding through a dry wasteland. In the movie it was portrayed in an entirely different way. Thats what excited me, to see what another person imagined the story to be like.

I think if your watching the movies for the suspense, do yourself a favor and read the book. Sometimes knowing whats going to happen is even better.

Just say No! :)

[Stillman]

Well, I don't believe anyone who really appreciates movies would want these. It's a similar mentality to those hordes of 14year old "gimmes" who download tons and tons of mp3s and DivXs because they can, and it's somehow "cool" to have it before anyone else. Half the time, they don't even watch them! It's just a status/ego thing to be able to say "oh, I've got that. Had it for weeks *yawn*".

What interests me is that I've always thought this was quite a "western" mentality, grounded in materialism and greed. Are the Chinese just the same? Or do they have other motivations?

Re:Just say No! :)

[jericho4.0]

I think that kind of mentality is common in all cultures, China not the least. The Japanese, after all, have a marked appitite for the newest and greatest.

I think it's a universial trait, that manifests itself diffently is every culture and sub-culture.

Re:Just say No! :)

[Nept]

To put it into perspective, in there city I work, Shenzhen which is considered a pretty good place for tech jobs most jr. programmers make the equivalent of around $200 US per month. That's considered damn good wage too. Menial labor (waiter/ess in a high class restaurant) is about 10 yuan a day (1.20 US). How many of these people can afford to pay 25-30 US per DVD do you think? Or pay 3-5 US to watch a movie in the theatre? Even the street price of a VCD (about 10 yuan) is above what most people here can afford.
For movie execs to say they lose money in Asia is just a line of pure bullshit. They don't even have a market here! There's no way the vast majority of the people here can afford to pay western prices. It's laughable.
And Shenzhen has a much higher standard of living than the rest of China and even most of Asia, save perhaps HK, Shanghai and one or two other places.

A Letter to Mr. Jackson

[trotski]

I found this gem today:

• To: Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema
  
  Those of us who have seen The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring know what an amazing director Peter Jackson is. When I learned that there apparently was to be a sequel, I was overjoyed. However, Peter Jackson has decided to tastelessly name the sequel "The Two Towers". The title is clearly meant to refer to the attacks on the World Trade Center. In this post-September 11 world, it is unforgiveable that this should be allowed to happen. The idea is both offensive and morally repugnant. Hopefully, when Peter Jackson and, more importantly, New Line Cinema see the number of signatures on this petition, the title will be changed to something a little more sensitive.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  The Undersigned
  

Some people are stupid. ;)

Re:A Letter to Mr. Jackson

[chabotc]

If you ask me the note that petitiononline.com added to this petition is even funnier then the original text.. You just have to apreciate the effort it must've cost them to respond so seriously to the 'issue' ;-)

"Please Note: The Two Towers is the title of the JRR Tolkien book originally published in 1954, the second book of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The title was thus established some 47 years prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center towers, and there is no evidence to suggest that Peter Jackson meant anything by continuing the same title other than faithfulness to the beloved Tolkien classics. Furthermore, the two distant, opposing towers in the Tolkien classic have very little if anything in common with the two matching towers of the World Trade Center. -- PetitionOnline.com"

Speaking from experience...

[Leto-II]

I've seen a few copies of LoTR 2 here in China. Sort of. All the DVD/VCD copies I've seen here so far have been labelled quite well. Pretty box art and everything. But when you put in the disc it turns out to be a completely different movie. Not sure which movie it was as I didn't watch long enough to be sure, but it's some old fantasy flick from the 70's. AFAIK they don't have a real copy of LoTR 2 yet in China.

Pirate VCDs can get you chicks!

[6Yankee]

Thanks to my brother, I *ahem* had access to Episode 1 on VCD about a month before it came out.

There were three girls on my entire engineering course at the time. One of them was a Star Wars fan, not to mention gorgeous. I happened to mention that I had this VCD, and that night found us lying on my bed in my darkened room staring at a 14" monitor. (I said monitor).

Can't believe I actually watched that movie, but it was worth it. Unfortunately I was too stupid to take advantage of the situation. Wonder if she's into LOTR? =)

Re:suspence

[DennyK]

Not everyone can afford a big-screen TV and surround sound system. Without those, the experience watching at home doesn't really compare to the theater. An afternoon ticket around here can be had for $6-7 at the best theaters, and if you skip the concession stands and bring your own munchies (not that I would ever do such an Evil Thing, of course... ;-D ), when you consider there are only a handful of movies I consider worth watching coming out each year, a few trips to the theater is not a bad deal. Of course, I do have a DVD player (well, a PS2...), and I own many VHS and DVD copies of my favorite movies for repeated viewing at home on my cheap 19" TV, but sometimes there are still films I want to see in the theater.

The only downside to the theater is that I can't adjust the volume. Has anyone else noticed that most theaters these days turn the sound up to truly nasty levels? I have rather sensitive hearing, and the last several movies I went to, the sound was loud enough to really cause pain until I stuffed some napkins in my ears. These days, I just bring along earplugs to most movies. (While you might think that detracts from the whole immersive "surround sound" experience, the movies I've been at actually sound fine, and sometimes even a bit too loud, through a set of earplugs, which is really scary considering the plugs are lowering the volume by a few dozen decibles... ;) )

DennyK

Some insight into chinese culture

[t0qer]

This is a copy and paste of a response made to a comment I made a while back, it really opened my eyes as to *why* chinese are so into open source. I believe that Chinese frugalness (as explained by the below re-post) is to blame for the rampant piracy of The Two Towers.

Before I get to the repost i'd like to add in my own link and two cents from the SVCD Faq I read.

• The political objectives of the Chinese government. It was decided that DVD - while undoubtedly a good technical specification as such - is all too tightly controlled by DVD Consortium, a closed body of foreign companies. The Chinese government did not quite like the idea that the domestic home electronics industry would have to pay royalties to foreign companies in order to manufacture next generation video disc products for Chinese people. It was calculated that creating a royalty-free, full-fledged video disc format on their own would be a major long-term win for the domestic industry. Moreover, this was also considered an issue of national pride; an opportunity to flex some technical muscle, and to send a clear signal to the outside world that China has enough critical mass to be able to ignore foreign entertainment standards it does not want to conform to. (Chinese politicians and researchers are now keen to celebrate SVCD as the first international high-tech standard that has been developed in China.) Finally, it was also thought that a Chinese video disc standard would help in pressuring the DVD Consortium to keep the licensing fees down, at least for the Chinese market.

Cool huh? It's a part of their culture folks. How can Hollywood fight an entire culture of 4 billion people?

The only thing that strikes us Americans as odd is the communist goverment that is in power there. As geeks we are appalled that they would dare install a firewall to protect their people, which in our eyes is a violation of their free speech, but this is what their society just does. How do you convince this culture of 4 billion people that what they are doing is not being frugal but stealing

It would begin at a goverment level, and the police would have to crack down on the street vendors that bootleg it. Will it happen? I doubt it, from the above snippet of the SVCD faq I bet the goverment is celebrating yet another victory.

I am, for one. (Re: Are there any Chinese slash..) (Score:5, Informative)
by DigitalHammer (581235) <digitalhammer001&hotmail,com> on Wednesday August 14, @02:49AM (#4068791) Is there any Chinese Slashdotters...that can provide a cultural insight as to why china would be so open to open source?

First of all I would like to state that I am of pure Chinese descent.

To answer your question, I believe there are 3 factors that make China very open to open source: Confucianism, the WTO, and Microsoft licensing.

The centuries-old mentality of being extremly frugal with one's money or possesions. Though this idea is ancient, the Communist government began to encourage the use of this virtue in times of famine and hardship. This article from Time Magazine titled Overeating Dying in China further explains:

In the early 1980s when some nouveau rich squandered their money on restaurants delicacies and government officials took advantage of their jobs to attend luxurious feasts, a distorted concept was built up in most Chinese's minds: the wealthier one is, the more fatty foods are on your dinning table.

The grumbles about upstarts' arrogance and the government officials' corruption turned into general disapproval. People began to look favorably at the ancient Chinese maxim which praises abstinence in consumption....Considering the 30 million destitute Chinese struggling in remote mountainous areas and those laid-off work who are living a hard life, traditional virtues like fighting one's way up and building the country through hardship and thrift are still highly encouraged by the Chinese government.

This frugal ideal, reinvigorated in the minds of mainland Chinese, compounded with ancient Confucian values of filial piety encourage the development and acceptance of open source software over propeitery ones in China. The bit about filial piety applies to the corporate environment of Chinese businesses. Filial piety in Chinese families enforce the younger family members' respect of older ones. This encourages the younger members' to set priorities that value the importance of the older family member (typically the father, mother, and grandparents). Chinese children, raised under this mentality, carry these priorities over to their workplace where they place their upmost importance upon the boss and senior officials (formerly occupied by older family members).

In most, if not all jobs in China involving internal technology, the IT manager must find software that will create a stable infrastructure while saving as much money as possible. This is where the frugal mentality and the rigid set of priorities converge to brighten the appeal of open source software. Because China is attempting to gain full membership within the WTO, which requires its adherance to strict IP rules, the country began an enormous crackdown on the pirated software industry. Using pirated (MS) software no longer was an option, as it used to be 10 years ago. Another path would be to purchase MS software licenses. However, the thought of accepting the dinosauric financial demands of Microsoft licensing contracts clashed with the frugal mentality prolific with Chinese tech companies, and the set of priorities spawned by Confucian filial piety led them to consider the amount of funds that could be saved and allocated for other departments by not buying licenses. In turn, Chinese techs were left with another option: Open source software, more specifically Linuix. The legal and cost-free nature of the penguin OS became an appealing option to the Chinese techs, and in turn took the opportunity to develop and integrate it in to their corporate infrastructure.

Chinese cultural traditions of filial piety and frugality are further explained in this excerpt of the site Paul Herbig's Working Papers:

Chinese Network

The Chinese commonwealth is a group of small Chinese companies from all over the world affiliated with each other, protecting and taking care of each others businesses. They are also referred to as 'Greater China', or the 'Chinese Network'.

The survival mentality and the Confucian tradition of patriarchal authority, form the values of a typical Chinese entrepreneur - one who seeks to control his own small dynasty. These so call life raft values are:

l.Thrift ensures survival.
2.A high, even irrational, level of savings is desirable, regardless of immediate needs.
3.Hard work to the point of exhaustion is necessary to ward off the many hazards present in an unpredictable world.
4.The only people you can trust are family-- and a business enterprise is created as a familial life raft.
5.The judgment of an incompetent relative in the family business is more reliable than that of a competent stranger.
6.Obedience to patriarchal authority is essential to maintaining coherence and direction for the enterprise;
7.Investment must be based on kinship or clan affiliations ,not abstract principles.
8.Tangible goods, like real estate ,natural resources, and gold bars are preferable to intangibles like illiquid securities or intellectuals properties.
9.Keep your bags packed at all times,day or night (Kao,p.25).
Unlike the Japanese Keiretsu, the Chinese network is an open system for all Chinese entrepreneurs all over the world. They watch for each others businesses and help those who are in need. These Chinese entrepreneurs have a give - and - take relationship. The network is usually formed by joint ventures, weddings, political opportunities and common cultures. Ownership of the company are usually passed to relatives, regardless of their educational background or competency (the classic example is An Wang's passing of his company, Wang Computers, to his mediocre son instead of professional managers--which ended in failure). Generation after generation, no matter in what culture they were brought up, every Chinese seeks control and security of their businesses.
The first Chinese generation has a survival and Confucius mentality. Every business decision is made for the future of the family. Unlike the old generation, the younger generation are born in other countries outside of mainland China. They do not only carry the Chinese culture, but the one they were born in as well. This generation, especially if born in a western country, has a sense of individualism. Companies like Winbond,a high-tech company in Taiwan, which considers themselves to be a Chinese company , believes that you should respect your family and love ones but you have to set your mind on what is right for the company. D.Y. Yang,owner of Winbond, says, A Chinese company depends less on data and more on intuition,feelings,and people. But on the other hand, he also mentions, Of course you have to respect the family business structure, but since this is a high tech company,individual contributions are important (Kao,p31).
---snip

I have heard about the open markets in china where you can purchase bootlegs of any software for near the cost of the CD. If the choice is between M$ at .5 dollars and Linux at .5 dollars linux wins.

On a side note, frugality, combined with Communist ideals and Confucian values led to the explosive growth of the pirated software and media industry in China, as this essay written by Rutgers Univesity student Sheng Ding explains:

Confucius's concept of the transmission of culture and Marx's views on the social nature of language and invention arose from very different ideological foundations. Nonetheless, because each school of thought in its own way saw intellectual creation as fundamentally a product of the larger society from which it emerged, neither elaborated a strong rationale for treating it as establishing private ownership interests.[15] Deeply influenced by these two ideologies, China falls behind all developed countries and many developing countries in the field of intellectual property protection. It is also not difficult to understand why most of Chinese did not know what were IPRs in 1980s.

Well, I am confident that this reply answers your question. More information about Chinese philosophies and other ideals that are involved in China's flourishing open source movement can be found below:

Paul Herbig's Working Papers [google.com]

A Paper on IP Rights in China, by Sheng Ding [rutgers.edu]

The Chinese Way with Money, an article from the Shanghai Star [chinadaily.com.cn]

Re:Lies

[PjotrP]

look if this story was true we would find copies of it on the net. Have you guys any idea how much prestige releasing this movie on the net would give to any movie release (pirate) groups?

In the scene of pirating movies everything is a prestige thing. Its about releasing the best quality movies before another group does it. The scene even has rules, though not as strict as the game-pirating scene. Anyway any group releasing this movie this early would get mucho kudoos or whatever those punks think they can measure their success as a pirate group with.

Any of the most succesfull groups have loads of contacts in Asia as things just are easier to get in asia, with more cinema-owners not caring about "lending" the screener-dvd to somebody for a night, and with all the anime or whatever kind of movies that are released there before the US. The dvd-rip would most probably hit the internet even before the streetvendors have it. so since there are no dvdrips on the internet there very probably is no dvd for sale in asia... so this is instead just that lil bit more attention and part of the media hyping of the movie...

Being in Asia right now...

[greendot]

[Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam]

I haven't seen any LotR DVD's anywhere here. And yes, I do look and buy. ;-) (when in rome..) This is THE movie I want to see. I almost want to fly back to the states to see it.

As for what movies ARE here.. Harry Potter 2 and Die Another Day showed up on the streets here the day after their release. I haven't been able to watch the DVD's yet cuz my laptop went belly up, but I did get to see a VCD of Harry Potter. It sucked.

As far as my intentions go, and I tell people here all the time, I will watch all of the movies back in the theaters in the US when I get back... if they're still on. I'm pretty sure the LotR:TT and Potter will be still there, but I doubt Die Another Day will, which makes me kind of sad.

People here can't understand the western facination with the "theater". People are always asking me what I miss most, and I tell them without evening thinking - the movies. They ask me, "why? You can get any movie for $1 right now and watch it at home!" Then I explain to them them the sheer size of the screen and the massive sound system. The theaters here suck. Very few people go to them. 5.1 surround sound systems run for $20 a pop so everybody has them. Home theaters are what they want.

Families just can't "go to the movies". A few family members maybe. Getting the family out would require the renting of a car or van.

Plus, I doubt Hollywood would release movies here. The average income is $50/month and they're not going to spend it on a movie when they have a huge family to feed.

Hollywood has nothing to worry about here. They're not losing money here because they don't release movies here. Westerners buy a few DVD's because they can't see the movies here. Now, if AMC put a nice big screen here in the middle of Saigon - it would be another story.

They're a bunch of cry-babies if you ask me.

like other have said, BS!!!

[mliu]

Haha, I just have to add my 2 cents on this, since I like this story.

My caucasian friend went to China last year. While there he picked up a bunch of DVDs. He was excited to see that they already had both Two Towers and Return of the King on DVD, as well as Spiderman, which had been out not long in the theaters. He eagerly bought them all at grossly inflated (for pirate dvds) prices, and when he brought him home we popped them in the dvd player together. The Two Towers turned out to be a video of what appeared to be maybe a SCA reunion or something. It was a bunch of guys riding around in goofy costumes on horses. I couldn't stop laughing. He then popped in Spiderman, and as the movie started, the dramatic title of Earth Vs. The Spider came up on the screen. He didn't even bother taking his dvds with him as he left.

Haha, they sure had nice cases though. That's the key for the pirates: nice, believable cases.

I'm sure the exec knew that it wasn't actually the TT too, he just wanted to spread some FUD about the evil pirates.

Man, I could have gotten my story posted on /. and scooped this one by a year.....

Re:The only bad kind of Theft?

[perfects]

> Most of what's labeled as piracy nowadays is simply acting
> in accordance with the laws of information physics at possible
> detriment to the financial standing of companies that have a
> vested interest in maintaining the status quo with regards to
> content-centric business models.

That's the most absurd statement I have heard since "Information wants to be free".

How is that any different from saying:

"Most of what's labeled as burglary nowadays is simply acting in accordance with the laws of mechanical physics at possible detriment to the financial standing of companies that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo with regards to inventory-centric business models."

In other words, you are using big, important-sounding words to say "since it is inherently possible to steal, it's not really theft".

Just because information has no physical reality, and just because it can be copied at virtually no cost, that does not mean that the information has no value.

IMO that's the key point that most anti-copyright proponents miss: Information Has Value. If it didn't, nobody would want to steal it.

Secondarily, and just as important: Information costs time and money to produce.

Third: Companies and individuals often spend time and money producing Information in order to sell it and make a profit.

Fourth: There is nothing inherently evil about that.

When you acquire something that has value without compensating the owner, that is Stealing. When you do it in violation of the current law, whether you agree with that law or not, that is Illegal.

Crime doesn't pay

[vaxer]

Robert Sunshine, managing director of CineAsia organizer Sunshine Group Worldwide, told attendees he spotted DVDs of "Analyze That" in a Bangkok shop last week.

Man oh man, I think I'd pay a buck to give that movie back.

Their own internal problem?

[moncyb]

I don't think this story is a lie. It sounds to me the movie studios have just as much problem protecting their copyrighted material inside their own organization. Why else would we get these movies released from illegitimate sources before the movie even comes out?

...and they want a censorship and control system (aka DRM) placed on the general public? It sounds to me that won't solve their copyright infringement problems at all. More likely the "pirates" will steal the footage before any DRM control is placed on it. Moreover they will equally be able to steal or aquire all the software / equipment / DRM keys needed to make their content appear with valid watermarks. The only ones who won't be able to publish are the legitimate everyday person who has been making "intellectual property" since the beginning of history.

Maybe congress needs to pass a law to increase the "security" of movie studios. (and hopefully put them out of business in the process) ;-)

Okay, so let's suppose...

[Crash Culligan]

From the sound of it, many people here don't believe that the pre-screen piracy actually took place. But let's suppose for a moment that it's true: that "The Two Towers" DVD hit the streets in Asia even before the movie is due to hit the theaters.

Shameful! Shocking! The movie is pirated even before it's released here! How could such a thing happen? Why, the only organization who has the film is the studio itself. Hmmmmm...

This could have been accomplished either of two ways:

1. Someone snuck a camcorder into one of the test showings and recorded it. In this case, the studio didn't have enough security at their screens to check for recording equipment. This would produce a really low quality movie since there's no way to set up a tripod. Odds are it would not produce a good DVD, so there's only one other option:
2. Someone within the studio itself pirated it. This is a monstrous accusation, I know, but think how easy it would be. These big films are already digitally mastered, and sneaking a single disc out of the studio probably wouldn't be so hard. Or there's email. I don't know what kind of computer security the studios have working for them (it can't be that good given how they're universally reviled on /.) but someone could probably pack up the film (or even the contents of the finished DVD) out of the studio.

These are the only ways that I can think of (reply with your own ideas, please!), and in either case, the piracy is due to the studio's own negligence and/or delusions of invulnerability. Bottom line: There's no way they can pin this on Joe Consumer and his tricked out VCR/DVD rig, or Joe Geek with his Linux box running DeCSS.

Perhaps we should believe them, and help them to understand where their problems really lie. Because I bet they're too thick to figure it out for themselves.

I'm anti-piracy, pro-fair-use, and anti-bullshit. Just like 98% of everyone else out there.