The Piracy Price Wars

By Don Lee, Times Staff Writer

Last fall Time Warner Inc. quietly began selling cut-rate DVDs in China to better compete with cheap bootleg copies of its movies. But the bootleggers were already a step ahead.

Even before Warner Home Video got its low-priced movies on the market, merchants along Wenmiao Road — a hot spot here for pirated goods — started peddling DVDs that compress four or five movies onto a single disc.

Although their picture quality is far from perfect, they are watchable. And priced at 5 yuan — or 60 cents — a disc, they are helping steer buyers away from the cheapest legitimate alternatives on the market, including DVD movies from Warner, which start at $2.65.

Wow! $2.65 for a DVD. Why I can go to my local Best Buy and get the latest DVDs for $18-$20. I've said it before - we are getting ripped when it comes to DVD pricing. That Time Warner can put out DVDs in China for $3 and make a profit on the sales means they can do the same here. A long time ago I suggested that $8 per DVD is a better price since that's how much discs cost in those multi-disc sets. But perhaps $5 per disc is a more accurate price point.

Get a clue DVD Producers! You want sales, lower the damn prices. Don't whine that you're losing money to pirates. You're not making money because the high prices keep buyers away. If you can compete in China, you can compete here.

Get another clue. Maybe people are willing to buy lower quality DVDs with multiple movies on them. The pirates aren't producing top quality but have a market. How about a two tier system. High quality DVDs for $5 or lower quality for much less. The lower quality ones could be downloaded from your web sites...hint, hint.