Medosch argues that: “piracy, despite being an entirely commercially motivated activity carried out in black or grey markets, fulfills culturally important functions” (Reader, page 318).
Armin Medosch (2008: 81) correctly points out that ‘piracy fulfils an important role by giving access to cultural goods which otherwise would be completely unavailable to the vast majority of the people.’
A good example to illustrate this point would be the film piracy industry in China. As Armin Medosch (2008:81) also notes ‘in markets such as China, piracy not only serves to provide access to the products of mainstream commercial movie industries, may it be Hollywood, Bollywood or Korea, it also fills gaps in provision and provides access to art movies and more difficult fare which does not get official distribution for whatever reason.’ and piracy ‘gives people access to information and culture goods they had otherwise no chance of obtaining.’
Shujen Wang (2008: 52) notes that in China, thirty-six percent of households own VCD players, with more converting to DVD players. In 2002, there were over 5.3 million DVD players in China and pirated DVDs were being sold for $0.75. In contrast, movie ticket prices have skyrocketed in China for the past 20 years and they are largely considered to be a luxury item. Movie tickets are sold for as much as 150 yuan (approximately USD 18). Shanghai Jiaotong University’s Li Yichung commented to China Youth Daily “A movie ticket is equivalent to 1/400 of per capita monthly income in the United States, but about 1/20 in China—20-fold higher than the former.” According to China Daily, the average movie ticket price at 36.38 yuan (2009) is 2.5 percent of a month’s discretionary income, 0.5% percent higher than in developed countries. The news article also quoted that the average Chinese only goes to the movies once in every 5 years and according to China Youth Daily, in China there is only one screen for every 190000 people’ (Lee Valerie, The Epoch Times, 1 Sept 2010). All these points to an almost non-existant movie-going culture in China, a culture where people necessarily have to turn to piracy to obtain cultural products they would otherwise not have a chance to gain access to. In this case, price is deterring citizens from obtaining these cultural products.
In China, the state-controlled China Film Corporation has exclusive control over the importing of foreign films (Laikwan Pang 2004: 106). China Film Corporation is known to be ‘extremely selective’ about what they import and the average Chinese audience is only able to consume foreign films through pirated copies (Laikwan Pang 2004: 108). Furthermore, larger provincial distributors team up with smaller regional distributors to prevent others from buying directly from the studios. In this way, movie-goers still have very little choice over their movie choices because films continue to come from the same regional source (Laikwan Pang 2004:106).
In China, piracy is very much within the “private sphere” such that no one single power controls the films ‘pirated, distributed or watched.’ This means that Chinese can gain access to a wide array of films which they will never be able to via official distribution channels (Laikwan Pang 2004: 114).
Pirated DVDs for sale in China
Some rights reserved by sinosplice
Through the case study of China’s piracy market, I thus argue in a similar vein to Medosch, piracy despite being a commercially motivated industry that may operate in legal, illegal or even in-between spheres, still fulfills important cultural functions by providing citizens access to cultural products they would otherwise not have an opportunity to consume. For these people, piracy fulfills a cultural function and is not merely an illegal distribution network .
References:
- Armin Medosch, (2008) ‘Paid in Full: Copyright, Piracy and the Real Currency of Cultural Production’, in Deptforth. TV Diaries II:Pirate strategies, Deptforth TV, Lonson, pp. 73-97
- Valerie Lee (2010), ‘China’s (Relatively) Small Cinema Market Reflected in its Cost’, The Epoch Times, Sept 1, extracted from http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china/small-cinema-market-china-41970.html , 21 May 2011
- Laikwan Pang (2004) ‘Piracy/Privacy: The Despair of Cinema and Collectivity in China’, boundary 2, Fall, Vol. 31 Issue 3, p101-124
- Shujen Wang (2003) ‘Framing Piracy: globalization and film distribution in Greater China’, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, United States of America
smileinthesun 