In Shanghai, bootleg goods are moved to secret rooms

06 May 2010 | 9:04 - By Stefano Boscutti

A few weeks ago, government inspectors fanned out across the city and ordered shops selling pirated music and movies to stash away their illegal goods during the expo, a six-month extravaganza that opens this month.

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But shop owners found a novel way to comply — they simply chopped their stores in half.  In a remarkable display of uniformity, nearly every DVD shop in central Shanghai has built a partition that divides the store into two sections: one that sells legal DVDs (often films no one is interested in buying), and a hidden one that sells the illegal titles that everyone wants — Hollywood blockbusters like “Avatar” (for a dollar), Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” and even Lady Gaga’s latest CD “The Fame.”  When asked last week what was going on, clerks at Even Better Than Movie World (across the street from its rival Movie World) readily acknowledged to a visitor that they had been told to hide the illegal goods, and that inspectors would pretend not to notice the clandestine backroom operation.  Who needs class war when culture war is just around the corner?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/business/global/28piracy.html

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About this Blog

New New Media looks at how our mediascape is exploding to bits. How the latest technology and the internet are changing the way we live, work and play. How the latest media is shaping us all.

Stefano Boscutti is an executive creative director and strategist. He's like a better looking version of Todd Sampson. He also has an abiding faith that stories and wordplay (and not powerpoint presentations) will change the world.

 
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