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OT-Warez
On a recent trip to Malaysia and Thailand, I found there is some progress in the wholesale pirating, but not everywhere.
In Malaysia, the outright, blatant, sale of pirated software, CDs and DVDs has been emasculated. I found no software, but it is still possible to find a few CDs and DVDs, but these have been driven underground, even in street markets. On two occasions, I was offered them but you were taken off to a hidden place to see them. However, console games are still openly available (perhaps the cops haven't caught on to these yet!): this is perhaps economically more damaging because the profit is in the sales of the games, not the consoles. Genuine imitation Rolexes and other quality watches, perfumes and clothes still abound.
Thailand, though, is another story. I visited a mall in Bangkok which was almost exclusively devoted to IT over 6 floors with, perhaps 50 or so commerces on each floor. It seemed that every other shop was openly offering some form of pirated software. games, VCDs, DVDs (often porn) and so on. Most of the software was in Thai, but English versions were available in some shops (e.g. Windows XP Pro for ~ $10). The range was very limited, mainly the popular titles, although I did see AutoCad for the same price! There were also some home-grown titles.
Many of the shops were offering build-it-yourself components, but the offering was typically what was on the market in the West 12 - 18 months ago at unimaginably low prices (obsolete stock?). It would be possible to build up a P4 1.5 computer with everything needed for DV work for about $300 or so. All good names, too.
However, DVD burning has not yet caught on in a big way, although VCD burning is extremely popular.(there must have been over 100 shops selling nothing but blank media with a wide choice of the printing thereon, mostly of unknown make, for about 10 cents a go. Some of them also offered branded CD-R and CD-RW media. Very few shops offered DVD burners and fewer still the media. I found some with unknown brand DVD-Rs but only two offered branded ones, but not held in stock. The unknown ones were sold at about $2 each, individually. I could have got genuine Pioneer DVD-R blanks for about $3 but the lead time was longer than my scheduled stay in Bangkok.
This leads me to a question: if they can sell them for that price there, why are they so damn expensive in the West, where they have a better economy of scale?
Finally, you may ask what I bought? The answer is nothing in the way of software, but I do admit to having bought two DVDs of Hollywood blockbusters for $2 each, more out of curiosity to see whether they actually worked. They do, but both glitch very slightly for a fraction of a second on odd occasions: just sufficient to be noticeable but not enough to destroy the entertainment value.
In Malaysia, the outright, blatant, sale of pirated software, CDs and DVDs has been emasculated. I found no software, but it is still possible to find a few CDs and DVDs, but these have been driven underground, even in street markets. On two occasions, I was offered them but you were taken off to a hidden place to see them. However, console games are still openly available (perhaps the cops haven't caught on to these yet!): this is perhaps economically more damaging because the profit is in the sales of the games, not the consoles. Genuine imitation Rolexes and other quality watches, perfumes and clothes still abound.
Thailand, though, is another story. I visited a mall in Bangkok which was almost exclusively devoted to IT over 6 floors with, perhaps 50 or so commerces on each floor. It seemed that every other shop was openly offering some form of pirated software. games, VCDs, DVDs (often porn) and so on. Most of the software was in Thai, but English versions were available in some shops (e.g. Windows XP Pro for ~ $10). The range was very limited, mainly the popular titles, although I did see AutoCad for the same price! There were also some home-grown titles.
Many of the shops were offering build-it-yourself components, but the offering was typically what was on the market in the West 12 - 18 months ago at unimaginably low prices (obsolete stock?). It would be possible to build up a P4 1.5 computer with everything needed for DV work for about $300 or so. All good names, too.
However, DVD burning has not yet caught on in a big way, although VCD burning is extremely popular.(there must have been over 100 shops selling nothing but blank media with a wide choice of the printing thereon, mostly of unknown make, for about 10 cents a go. Some of them also offered branded CD-R and CD-RW media. Very few shops offered DVD burners and fewer still the media. I found some with unknown brand DVD-Rs but only two offered branded ones, but not held in stock. The unknown ones were sold at about $2 each, individually. I could have got genuine Pioneer DVD-R blanks for about $3 but the lead time was longer than my scheduled stay in Bangkok.
This leads me to a question: if they can sell them for that price there, why are they so damn expensive in the West, where they have a better economy of scale?
Finally, you may ask what I bought? The answer is nothing in the way of software, but I do admit to having bought two DVDs of Hollywood blockbusters for $2 each, more out of curiosity to see whether they actually worked. They do, but both glitch very slightly for a fraction of a second on odd occasions: just sufficient to be noticeable but not enough to destroy the entertainment value.
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