In 2007, it was estimated that 93 percent of the movies sold in China were pirated. Pirated DVDs, VCDs, (video compact discs, cheaper, low-tech versions of DVDs) and videos are widely available on the streets in China. The film industries in China, Hong Kong and Hollywood all lose billions to the pirating of films on videos, DVDs and VCDs that cost only a few cents to make and are sold for around $1 a piece all over China in markets, on street corners and subway station and in the backrooms of legitimate DVD and video stores. Stalls at Silk Street Market in Beijing display licensed DVDS with holograms and every thing but when buys purchase one they are givens a pirated copy.
The latest Hollywood films often appear on the streets as pirated DVDs before the films open in theaters or soon afterwards. Pirated versions of the new Star Wars movies were available on pirated DVDs only days after they premiered at theaters in Beijing. In some places piracy is so rampant that even the pirates worry about there merchandise being copied. The selection of pirated material is amazing. Shops in Chinese cities often has a full catalog of classic films like old Hitchcocks, Truffauts and Hepburn-Tracy films as well as recent Hollywood releases. .
Some pirated DVDs are filmed with hand-held videos in American movie theaters on opening day, then taken to Asia by plane, copied on clandestine CD printing machines, and released on the streets within a few days. Others are made from high-quality screeners, advance copies given out members of the film academy and critics. In many cases the first copies to hit the streets are made with hand-held camcorders in theaters. Better quality ones show up weeks later.
DVDs are often pirated using copies that are available on the Internet. These days many don’t even bother with $1 DVDs they simply share digital file for free on the Internet. Many get them from the popular Chinese movie website Mtime.
Hollywood finds Beijing policy particularly unfair because it fails to crackdown on the pirated DVD trade at the same time it restricts the import of movies, DVDs and music/
