China is a country full of fakes - not necessarily fake people although those can be found in China as well as just about every country. Instead, I'm talking about fake goods of almost any kind imaginable. From trademark counterfeiting of famous brands to copyright piracy of music, movies and computer software, fakes are ubiquitous in China. Sometimes you can't help wondering if anything is really authentic.
An article from eChinacities entitled Pirate Pictures: China’s Fake DVD Pandemic discusses the prevalence of fake DVDs all over China. The article mentions an estimate that 93% of all movies sold in China are pirated copies which seems like an underestimate to me. Anyone who has visited China is almost sure to have experienced this as the fake DVD vendors are usually out in the open, especially in crowded shopping areas. For example, last year when I worked at a university in Zhengzhou 郑县, there were several stores that sold nothing but fake DVDs within a block of the campus.
Fake DVD Store
Somewhat to my surprise, I found that here in Xiamen 厦门, fake DVD stores are a bit hidden. Generally, they seem to be in the backroom or upstairs in some other type of store. For example, there are several conveniently located, but not outwardly visible, in the popular Zhongshan Road shopping area. My guess is that there must have been some enforcement in the recent past that forced vendors to be less conspicious.
Fake DVDs are so common in China that most Chinese people probably don't even know they are illegal since they have probably never seen the legal variety. Actually, most Chinese college students don't bother buying even the fake DVDs. They tend to think its ridiculous to pay anything for movies (not to mention music) and download it illegally from the Internet instead.
The major movie companies have tried to develop a legitimate market by reducing their prices in China, but there's no way they can compete with the DVD pirates, who commonly sell DVDs of popular movies for around 10 RMB (about U.S. $1.50).
The article says there's not much that can be done about the fake problem in China, quoting Shaun Rein of Forbes, who states that "China's piracy problem is not a matter of morality," he says
"More than anything, it is a matter of poverty." I agree partly, but also disagree in part and believe this is an oversimplification. While its true that much of China's population can't afford to buy legitimate DVDs, the very poor also can't afford the fakes ones (not to mention DVD players to play them on). On the other hand, there's a large and growing percentage of the Chinese population that spend significant amounts of money on much more expensive goods than DVDs and certainly could afford to buy legal copies.
I do agree with the article's assertion that China might pay dearly in the longer term for its inability or unwillingness to deal with intellectual property infringement. If China's economy is to continue the high rate of growth its experienced over the past few decades, it will have to start relying much more on creation and innovation rather than mere copying of Western products and technology. China may be able to successfully innovate, but figuring out how to effectively incentivize and protect such innovation could be a much more challenging problem.
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