I'm not into modern music or crappy Hollywood movies. They lost me after they started appealing to the lowest common denominator by tailoring everything for the "global" market. Not a big fan of all the washed up sequels either.
Most of the stuff I want to see or listen to is at least 25 years old. What really pisses me off is how they keep extending the copyrights. They're up to the life of the artist plus 70 years....probably so they can milk Elvis and the Beatles a little longer. At this point, nothing will ever be public domain again. I think 20 years is more than fair. But the American government would rather fine me $2 million and toss me into a gulag for downloading some ancient song.
I think the woman who got fined big was because she tried to fight the case. I think there was an option to pay about 6000 dollars fine, but she decided to fight on the grounds that no money was earned.
Again, I think she was done for file sharing (uploading).
If Hollywood moguls really expect everyone in China to purchase legal copies of films, why don't they adjust the prices to be reasonable for the purchasing power of the local people here? Do they honestly expect people to shell out 100 - 150 yuan per film?
You can get official/legal DVDs herein China, they run at about 30-70 rmb per disc. They contain the film, often subtitles, but rarely any of the extra features. I used to buy them in Shanghai.
For those interested in the juicy details, you can read about the frivolous lawsuit here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_v._Thomas
It's been six years already and still in the courts. Did somebody say McJustice?
Found this article about a 10 year old laptop confiscated:
www.nbcnews.com/[...]
@Tigertiger I know. Just sharing an article.
Easy access to movies, TV shows and music one might suspect is part of China's panem et circenses approach to keeping the population docile. As long as they are in front of their computers and TVs gawking they're not doing other, more threatening things. Apart from that, I've never heard of anyone ending up in trouble for being the end user of media copyright infringements in China. It's probably slowly going to change but for now it shouldn't be a source of worry.
Right. Beside that China doesn't want or try to be the policemen of the world.
