How NOT to stamp out piracy
Let's say you are an ambitious DVD pirate, and your agents have infiltrated a major movie studio with the aim of sabatoging their anti-piracy efforts. The studio wants to convince people to pay a little extra for legit DVDs and it is your goal to derail these efforts.
What could you do?
Well, you might annoy viewers by putting a hectoring anti-piracy spot in the DVD before the actual film starts.
You might even put a commercial advertisement in as well.
Heck, why stop at one? You could put in two, three, or even seven commercials! It's so crazy it just might work!
Now, for the final, aggravating touch that will ensure no consumer will ever again buy one of this studio's legitimate DVDs, you might make it impossible for viewers to skip, fast forward, or even stop the DVD player while these ads are running.
Amazingly, Sony has done all of the above with the release in mainland China of the DVD for its movie Kung Fu Hustle.
I kid you not, every time you start the DVD, it launches into the anti-piracy harangue, then goes into a total of seven ads, including one for Sony Ericsson mobile telephones. One of the commercials is even repeated in case you missed it the first time.
All this takes up about five minutes and the only way to stop the process is to turn off your DVD player. You cannot skip, stop, or jump directly to the movie menu.
As a believer that the creators of products I consume should be paid for their efforts, I try to buy legit product whenever I can. This is not easy in China, where you have to go considerably out of your way to find non-pirated movies and software, and then pay 10-20 times the price of what you would pay illicitly. It has, however, been great for Amazon.com, which rings up not only the sale of the product itself, but also scores the international shipping charges, which typically have plumper margins than the physical products themselves. Anyway, this sort of anti-consumer practice is enough to make even me reconsider buying more Sony product, at least the stuff that is churned out locally.
And it really is a great way to push Chinese consumers deeper into the arms of media pirates. Every Chinese I talk to who knows about this has barked: "This is a great reason not to buy legitimate DVDs!"
Way to go, Sony!
What could you do?
Well, you might annoy viewers by putting a hectoring anti-piracy spot in the DVD before the actual film starts.
You might even put a commercial advertisement in as well.
Heck, why stop at one? You could put in two, three, or even seven commercials! It's so crazy it just might work!
Now, for the final, aggravating touch that will ensure no consumer will ever again buy one of this studio's legitimate DVDs, you might make it impossible for viewers to skip, fast forward, or even stop the DVD player while these ads are running.
Amazingly, Sony has done all of the above with the release in mainland China of the DVD for its movie Kung Fu Hustle.
I kid you not, every time you start the DVD, it launches into the anti-piracy harangue, then goes into a total of seven ads, including one for Sony Ericsson mobile telephones. One of the commercials is even repeated in case you missed it the first time.
All this takes up about five minutes and the only way to stop the process is to turn off your DVD player. You cannot skip, stop, or jump directly to the movie menu.
As a believer that the creators of products I consume should be paid for their efforts, I try to buy legit product whenever I can. This is not easy in China, where you have to go considerably out of your way to find non-pirated movies and software, and then pay 10-20 times the price of what you would pay illicitly. It has, however, been great for Amazon.com, which rings up not only the sale of the product itself, but also scores the international shipping charges, which typically have plumper margins than the physical products themselves. Anyway, this sort of anti-consumer practice is enough to make even me reconsider buying more Sony product, at least the stuff that is churned out locally.
And it really is a great way to push Chinese consumers deeper into the arms of media pirates. Every Chinese I talk to who knows about this has barked: "This is a great reason not to buy legitimate DVDs!"
Way to go, Sony!
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