Russia, WTO and pirated DVDs
Jan. 22nd, 2007 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izardWhen I was choosing a neighborhood to rent a flat in, one of the factors that I liked about the location of my current living place was that it is close (in a walking distance) to "Yunona market". It is the 2nd largest underground market of pirated copyrighted material in Eastern Europe. My american colleagues liked the place too, and one even asked me if it is safe to take a picture of this place. Yes, it was safe.
It is even safer now, when 50% of the market is empty thanks to recent intellectual property rights campaign that our government is running because they terribly want to enter WTO. So, to buy a DVD with latest film one have to pay 10-15$ instead of 2.5 like before.
So there used to be a choice: to pay 2.5 at Yunona or to pay 15$ at trendy DVD shop in the mall.
Now the choice is quite different: to pay 15$ at Yunona, or to pay 5$ in the posh DVD shop in the mall. Why 5$? The DVD cover is the same as before (fully licensed and legal), but the content is different: 2 latest DVDs I've bought had a notice that this is a preview version intended for The Academy awards evaluation.... So pirates had just moved from an obvious "black market place" to "legal mall" :)
It is even safer now, when 50% of the market is empty thanks to recent intellectual property rights campaign that our government is running because they terribly want to enter WTO. So, to buy a DVD with latest film one have to pay 10-15$ instead of 2.5 like before.
So there used to be a choice: to pay 2.5 at Yunona or to pay 15$ at trendy DVD shop in the mall.
Now the choice is quite different: to pay 15$ at Yunona, or to pay 5$ in the posh DVD shop in the mall. Why 5$? The DVD cover is the same as before (fully licensed and legal), but the content is different: 2 latest DVDs I've bought had a notice that this is a preview version intended for The Academy awards evaluation.... So pirates had just moved from an obvious "black market place" to "legal mall" :)
