{"id":41,"date":"2007-04-12T16:58:46","date_gmt":"2007-04-13T00:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rayivey.com\/wordpress\/?p=41"},"modified":"2007-04-12T17:16:48","modified_gmt":"2007-04-13T01:16:48","slug":"beijing-diary-4-grotesque-national-product","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rayivey.com\/wordpress\/beijing-diary-4-grotesque-national-product\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>

China is a country of 1.3 billion people, and at least a billion of them sell bootleg cds and dvds on streetcorners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a champion for IP rights, this drives me crazy as I wend my way through the\u00a0streets of Beijing.\u00a0 “DVD!\u00a0 DVD!” calls the huckster every four or five steps that I take.\u00a0\u00a0I now just turn to them and say\u00a0in imperious (and I’m sure, incomprehensible) English, “You’re a pirate.\u00a0 A thief.\u00a0 You’re a nation of thieves.\u00a0 You’re a laughingstock to the world.\u00a0 No one will take China seriously until its people decide to take\u00a0intellectual property seriously!”<\/p>\n

I’m sure I’m making an enormous difference.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

Here’s the weird thing:\u00a0 I’m not at all sure that, aside from the thousands of World of Warcraft gold farmers, that the Chinese play games at all.\u00a0 I have not seen a single person carrying a gameboy and in all of Beijing I have found exactly NO game stores!!!\u00a0<\/p>\n

I’ve talked to some of the partners in the firm about this.\u00a0 “Where are the damn gamestores?!” I demand, as I am about to finish Final Fantasy IV on my GBA and will need a new game before I go home.<\/p>\n

Here’s what I think it is:\u00a0 Perhaps game cartridges and even game dvds are harder to bootleg, not to mention the fact that you have to have the actual consoles to use them.\u00a0 And in China, few people can afford the actual market prices for such things.\u00a0 At any rate, it’s been frustrating.<\/p>\n

But as it now turns out that I’m headed to Tokyo, I’m pretty confident that I’ll be able to find a game store there.\u00a0 I mean, it’s Japan, the gaming nexus of the solar system!!<\/p>\n

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