Testing the Efficency of the PRC Piracy Market
May 31st, 2005
The day before 20-plus MBA students and I arrived in Shanghai, the latest Star Wars movie was released in both the United States and China.
To test the efficiency of the PRC market in counterfeit (盗版 or daoban) DVDs, I offered a bounty to the first student to bring me a copy of the Star Wars DVD. The movie was released on Friday. I offered the bounty on Monday. I got a copy on Tuesday. By the end of the week, pirated copies were commonly available on the streets of Shanghai.
Like most pirated DVDs, the market price was RMB 7-10 (a range covering slightly less than to slightly more than one US dollar). The copy my students acquired was of viewable but inferior quality–the resolution was a bit blurry. It was not obviously made by someone holding up a cam-corder in a theater (as some pirated DVDs are), but it was not studio quality, either.