China: Wholesale price war over legal video discs
09/24/98
China Daily
Copyright(C) 1998 CHINA DAILY
BEIJING is rushing to set a bottom line for wholesale prices of Chinese video compact discs now on the market.
"Each VCD of a Chinese film sold wholesale in Beijing should be no less than 12 yuan (US$1.45)," Huang Guangquan, director of the Department of Audio and Visual Products, part of the Beijing Bureau of Radio and Television (BBRT), told Beijing Municipal People's Political Consultative Conference (BMPPCC) yesterday.
Wholesale prices for VCDs of Chinese films in Beijing now can be as low as 6 yuan (US$ 0.72). Huang said it was the result of vicious competition in the VCD market, and is unfair to the artists involved.
The conflict in wholesale pricing is only part of the struggle on the part of the film industry and the makers and sellers of original VCDs to make a profit. The battle against piracy continues, and still overshadows the wholesale price war, said many BMPPCC members.
Although Beijing has cracked down harder than ever before on pirate VCD dealers this year, seizing 200,000 discs since June, twice that of last year, pirate VCD sales are still common on many of the city's streets.
A sudden spot check by the Ministry of Culture on Beijing's officially approved dealers to find pirate VCDs among their wares in this May indicates at least 11.51 per cent of the market has been lost to pirated VCDs.
While China already has more than 20 million VCD players, not including many computers able to play the discs, its average annual retail earnings from disc sales is only 1.7 billion yuan (US$204 million), one-sixtieth of the video recording market in the United States in 1996.
When discussing the anti-piracy battle, Huang frankly admitted the illegal market is even more complicated now. He referred to the involvement of many women who are pregnant or taking small children with them when they sell pornographic VCDs, exploiting a loophole in China's criminal laws and effectively escaping prosecution.
The sale of lewd VCDs is clearly illegal, but Huang said the sellers know the police can do nothing but detain them a while and then let them go.
Last week, police at the Anzhen Station detained a pregnant woman selling lewd VCDs.
But as soon as she was taken to the station, she started to give birth Police had no practical alternative but to take her to the hospital and release her.
"This really has us all a bit flustered, for no law has ever touched on such a situation," Huang said.
Huang said BBRT has also complained about the penalties for pirating VCDs or selling pirate VCDs in Beijing.
Beijing's Municipal Managerial Regulations on Audio and Visual Products, passed in last July, state that VCD pirates should be fined five to 10 times their earnings.
"But most of them do business in cash and use no receipts," Huang said.
|
