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Apple in China, Part 2: Could Apple Help Reduce DVD Piracy?
By Paul Midler | February 24, 2008
As you may have guessed, I am an Apple customer, which is another way of saying that I belong to a religious cult. It’s not as bad as it sounds. There are some benefits…
Recently, I started renting movies through iTunes (which is also available on virus-compatible PCs). It’s an amazing experience. You scroll through and pick the movie you want to watch. With a stable Internet connection, you can start watching the thing immediately. The cost for most movies is $2.99.
Now, for only three bucks, why would you ever buy another pirated movie?
Most of the copies that I’ve purchased in China were those annoying dianying ban, the ones shot from inside a movie theater. The quality is so bad as to make the movie unwatchable, and occasionally you can actually hear the guy who is holding the video camera chewing popcorn. The others are often what the guys in the shop call deeweedee ban. It has the quality of a DVD thanks to someone cracking the software code, but then for some reason the damn thing stops somewhere in the middle. Not knowing how a movie ends is a terrible experience.
The counterfeits are cheap, but who cares. For three bucks, I’d rather get the real thing. Apple ran a special around Valentine’s day. They were showing Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I think, for only $0.99.
Companies like Prada and LV don’t want to lower the price of their luxury handbags from $1,000 in the hope of minimizing the price differential between the real thing and the price of a knock-off product. But reducing the price of movies and making them very easily accessible might actually help combat piracy.
About the only problem with the offering is a poor selection. The movie studios have given Apple permission to run with titles that did not do particularly well in the theaters, at least that’s the impression I get looking at the selection. They probably have some concerns with online rentals, no doubt.
I wonder what would happen if cell phone customers in China had access to the full range of movies available on iTunes. The Chinese government is carefully controlling the amount of Western films that enter China. Could iTunes really sell any Hollywood movie it wanted to in China?
Topics: China |
February 24th, 2008 at 9:29 am
I could see online sales reducing pirating, but there is a difference between renting/ owning. The pirated dvds that cost a dollar can be kept forever. I have thousands in my place, and I can never ship them back home or take them through customs. If your sure that you will never watch a movie twice its OK. I like to own mine.
February 24th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Actually, you get around this DVD quality problem by getting two DVD’s. Think of it as insurance. If one dies, you have a spare. The problem’s not unique to “Chinese edition” DVD’s. My experience with DVD rentals stateside is that DVD’s are extremely fragile in a way that VHS videotapes are not. They scratch and skip all the time. VHS tapes would just have picture problems around the problematic sections, but continue. Many DVD’s just stop dead in the middle or skip fifteen or twenty minutes.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
The toughest competitor to iTunes movie rental isn’t pirated DVDs in China, but rather pirated downloads from p2p sources such as bitTorrent. From pure quality and selection standpoints, the latter leads the former by a mile. I am very pessimistic that rights owners (studios) will get their acts together. Maybe the whole business model of selling music and movies, will have to eventually be fundamentally retooled.
I own an iPhone and multiple ipods. Steve Jobs is certainly a great tech chief with a marketing flair that is hard to duplicate, especially in his second act in Apple. His MacWorld presentations are great study for those in this business. Just in case you haven’t read these pieces, Tom Hormby has some great coverage of the history of Apple and Steve Jobs. Very interesting read!
http://lowendmac.com/orchard/
February 25th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
I think expats will go for it (As an American who is moving to Bangalore later this year, I intend on using iTunes as my lifeline to Tinseltown). By and large the expatriate community is made up of wealthier and more sophisticated consumers who both appreciate higher quality and consider the $2.99 to be a pittance.
The real question is will the Chinese go for it? Can they ever be convinced to pay for something for which they have a very well-oiled mechanism of free distribution?
I think for a prediction, we can look at Taiwan and Hong Kong–culturally Chinese societies which are farther along the consumer evolution ladder. So what is piracy like there?
Incidenally, speaking of cultural issues, the piracy rate of Windows and Office is lower in India than China…even though it is more expensive (considering PPP) in India! Culture matters.