Pirated 'Spider-Man 3' -- not so fast
Posted: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 10:28 AM
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Beijing, China
By Mark Mullen, NBC News Correspondent
Sony, you can relax -- for now...
The well publicized scare that copies of the anticipated blockbuster movie “Spider-Man 3” are already being peddled on the streets of Beijing even before the film’s U.S. release on May 4 are bogus, at least for now. At least that’s based on our experience with a discreet camera and a journey to the pirate’s cove of illegal movies in downtown Beijing.
We ventured to a market frequented by Western tourists, a place where guys on bikes peddling pirated DVDs come to catch them in their web. Sure enough, one man pulled out a shiny new DVD jacket with the “Spider-Man 3” logo.
Could this be the real thing -- a bootleg copy somehow ripped off from the premiere in Japan? Or was this a copy of “Spider-Man 2” -- reportedly finding its way into a newer jacket, something being reported here?
It was neither. We discovered that inside that “Spider-Man 3” jacket was actually a copy of "Earth vs. The Spider," a 2001 movie starring Dan Aykroyd. The pirates might be out to dupe tourists, but they upheld the idea of honor among thieves with their bait and switch by sticking to the same spider theme.
Too cheap to beat
That’s not to say Sony or any other major studio can relax altogether. Pirated copies of the new “Spider-Man” movie will certainly end up on Beijing’s streets. Unlike the guys selling movies on bikes, the pirated movie business here is for the most part mainstream.
Walk into most any video store -- including the nice ones that look like Blockbuster outlets in the States -- and there are pirated copies of hit movies and TV shows, most selling for under $2 each.
Earlier this month, the U.S. filed two complaints with the World Trade Organization (WTO), claiming that China was not doing enough to prevent or punish music and movie pirates.
In response to complaints, the Chinese government has increased efforts to crack down and on Wednesday a court ordered a Beijing company to pay $25,000 in damages to six U.S. movie studios for selling pirated DVDs.
But the industry is so well established now, it's difficult to stop. For one thing, the demand is high. It's the only way Chinese can get quick access to content that usually filters slowly into China through government censors.
Plus the movies sell here for a bargain. That presents another problem for U.S. entertainment companies hoping to break into the potentially lucrative Chinese market with its population of 1.3 billion consumers.
American companies know there’s no way they can sell one of their movies for $14 here like they do in the States. That’s more than what many Chinese make in a day. And they can’t sell them for $10 or even $5 either.
So, just like the U.S. music industry did by swallowing its pride and coming up with more reasonably priced music downloads to beat the pirates trading tunes for free online, U.S. film studios will likely have to settle for smaller sticker prices and hope to make more on volume in order to succeed in China.
And they’ll have to hold out hope that China will make it easier for U.S. companies to do business here, to free them from the tangled web woven by the pirates of Beijing.
