Warner slashes DVD prices to fight piracy in China - bit-tech.net Forums

The_Pope · 24th Apr 2006, 13:28

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/04..._china_piracy/

airchie · 24th Apr 2006, 13:46

Just a heads-up.

The link to here from the main site is broken.

Please feel free to delete this post once its fixed.

airchie · 24th Apr 2006, 13:50

I think if record companies weren't so greedy in the first place, piracy wouldn't be such a problem.

Drexial · 24th Apr 2006, 14:29

forums.

there are some typos in there :-p

its always good when we can see just how cheep it is to produce DVDs when they can sell them for $1.50 in china and no cheeper then like $8 for movies that are older in the US

Spaced_invader · 24th Apr 2006, 14:30

and then come and seel them in the uk for £15 and above... thanks a lot.. make us feel really special they are..

Bindibadgi · 24th Apr 2006, 14:51

So, basically the moral of the story is that mass piracy, on a Chineese scale is the only thing that will reduce DVD prices.

Callum · 24th Apr 2006, 15:08

I'm liking that solution. Living in Malaysia, where the "problem" of piracy is probably just as bad, I can agree that that is probably the only way to solve it. There would be no way of getting rid of piracy here, short of those measures. I don't even know of a shop on the entire island of Penang, that sells original copies of games. And the only ones who buy original copies of software are companies...

Technically, the police try and stop it, but the pirates have it covered. A guy on a walkie talkie at the bottom floor of the mall, and if any cops come in, the shops on the top floors are shut by the time they get there... Sometimes with customers inside

Just for 15 minutes or so :P

And when the cops come off duty, they'll be there with the rest of us

Compare 120 ringgit ($30) for some original DVDs, to fake copies for 4... (about $1). Can you blame us?

Nexxo · 24th Apr 2006, 15:20

Of course, seeing as in the West we'll still pay the same old price, you will now see a lot of illegal Chinese imports...

Reduction of price is an effective deterrent to piracy --and one that doesn't have to result in the manufacturer being out of pocket. Profit margins decrease as prices go down, but sales increase. At some point in the graph (where the lines Profit Margin and Sales intersect), is the optimal price point for maximum profit.

Bindibadgi · 24th Apr 2006, 15:26

or, legal illegal chineese imports, or gifts, as they will be labelled.

Nex demostrates the most fundemental concept of economics: finding a price where supply = demand that maximises both sales and revenue. /reminises in A level economics.

lepre · 24th Apr 2006, 16:59

well...that means we must pirate more

and then we'll have good prices.

radodrill · 24th Apr 2006, 17:22

The reason people turn to pirate copies (or peer-2-peer networks) is that DVD/CD/Software manufacturers are charging way too much for their product. I f the prices were more reasonable, more people would be willing to purchase original copies.

Suing people for using p2p is not the correct solution; lower prices would be a better alternative. Companies are realising that in the Asian markets they are experiencing low sales volumes because of piracy factories that mass produce "illegal" copies of their products and selling them at affordable rates. the fact that the WB is lowering prices in China is one step in the right direction; yet they should follow this practice Globally; resulting in more revenue based on greatly increased sales volumes, rather than on the exorbitant prices they currently charge.

tank_rider · 24th Apr 2006, 17:33

If DVD's in this country were £5 a pop i would have shelves of them instead of shelves of burned cd's. FACT. The same goes for music cd's etc.

Firehed · 24th Apr 2006, 17:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi

So, basically the moral of the story is that mass piracy, on a Chineese scale is the only thing that will reduce DVD prices.

Ladies and gents, start your torrents!

I don't download anymore since I get free rentals, but I've purchased *one* DVD in the last year (two as of Tuesday for Advent Children, as my love of Square and FFVII edges out my hatred of Sony and The Industry) and very little music as well.

Anyways, I just hope this works in China so they give it a try over here. Say a flat tenner for a movie instead of the $18 on the first day and twenty-something for the next three years afterwards.

Kaze22 · 24th Apr 2006, 18:00

Goes back to the simple business modo of any profit is better than no profit. The companies need to ask themselves would they rather make 50 cents off a Billion people or make 4 dollars of 2 people. The choice is obvious.
I made the same argument for PSP UMD movies a while back. When a product is simply not selling the only reasonable thing to do is drop the price astronomically. This same tactic can be used for UMDs you drop the price to $1 and package it with DVD and HD films and you stand to make a profit.

But don't expect DVD or HD films to drop to as low as China anytime soon, because one thing we must realize is that prices are comparible to income, and cost of production. The fact that movie distributors can hire the same pirating factories to print and distribute their films at a fraction of the price of what they can do in the west also a huge contributing factor in the low prices in China. DVD production costs less in China because of lower wages, and it's possible to make a profit off selling disks for $1.50. I don't think the same can be done in North America as wages are highers and productions costs to delivery costs are also highers.

TGImages · 24th Apr 2006, 18:06

We've got an unlimted rental plan so we just mostly rent what we want to see. Now if I could buy for $5-$9.99 I'd most likely drop the rental plan and buy instead... or be more inclined to buy a movie I like after renting it. Right now if I like something I'll wait a few years until it's on the "cheap" table/rack/page and then buy it however by that time I've usually decided that I really don't want it enough to buy it at any price. Had the cost been more reasonable up front I would bought it just on impulse.

How many others are like this? I'm sure milions and millions. Make it cheap and I'll do it. Make it expensive (relatively) and I'll probably talk myself out of it.

EQC · 24th Apr 2006, 19:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaze22

But don't expect DVD or HD films to drop to as low as China anytime soon, because one thing we must realize is that prices are comparible to income, and cost of production. The fact that movie distributors can hire the same pirating factories to print and distribute their films at a fraction of the price of what they can do in the west also a huge contributing factor in the low prices in China. DVD production costs less in China because of lower wages, and it's possible to make a profit off selling disks for $1.50. I don't think the same can be done in North America as wages are highers and productions costs to delivery costs are also highers.

If "high manufacturing cost" is the reason for high prices, then, why aren't we importing our DVD's from China? Transportation costs of a cruise-ship full of DVD's couldn't be more than $1 per disk (think about the cost of a week-long cruise for a person, subtract the food costs and the entertainment charges, now imagine replacing each person with a cabin full of dvd's....and then subtract about 90% because we'd be talking about a cargo ship and not a fancy cruise liner)...and with a $1.50 cost in China, disks shouldn't cost more than $3 here.

In fact, I bet most DVD's and CDs are manufactured overseas and intended for sale in the US (or elsewhere as the case may be). Why the high cost to North American consumers then? Because of the stupid consumers who pay the full price.

You can talk about economics all you want, but all that theory relies on consumers being intelligent -- consumers should buy less when prices go up, buy more when prices drop. While everybody in this forum is likely smart enough to follow that trend, 95% of people say "DVD's cost $20, and I want these 27 movies, I will buy them now." The best you can expect from a "typical" consumer is that he buys his DVD for $18.50 from a club store like Costco instead of for $22 somewhere else...but either way he's buying today, so manufacturers and production studios don't know the difference. Why would manufacturers lower the price just to get 5% more consumers when the 95% will pay the present rates?

The problem of high prices is caused by the fact that a materialistic, instant-gratification "gotta have it now" culture overshadows what a "consumer" is defined as economically.

specofdust · 24th Apr 2006, 19:30

Quote:

If "high manufacturing cost" is the reason for high prices, then, why aren't we importing our DVD's from China?

There was a company that did that in the UK, can't remember their name. They bought CD's and media from Hong Kong I believe, legal, but cheap, and resold it for still less then regular market prices. What happened? The BPI(think UK RIAA) stepped in and promptly ordered them to stop doing so. I guess globalisation is great for making the media, but god forbid the consumers actually use it to their advantage!

unrealhippie · 24th Apr 2006, 19:59

Hmm, I thought they planned to use the higher capacity HD-DVD to include more languages on each disk. I really hope they place most on one disk - then we can import them cheaply and play in english!

DXR_13KE · 24th Apr 2006, 20:09

here the normal wage is about 380€, of this 40% is for taxes that are taken out before you get the money, the rest is to pay food, water, electricity, "caixa de previdencia" (something like the retirement money for older people), other taxes on products (from 13% to 21% above the base price of the product depending of the type (computer stuff =21% tax )), fuel for the car,....etc.
how much is there for games, movies, music...etc?, so we resort to P2P, in Lisbon lots of people are being caught and put in jaill to wait for judgement(it is normal to wait about 1 month to 1 year (a pedofile was caught and he is in jail waiting for judgement since 2 year ago)), how do they know that you downloaded something? they use P2P software and note down you IP and the time of day, and then they ask your ISP for you adress and name, if you have downloaded music you get a find of 5000€, if you have movies you will see the sun in squares for 3 years.....

$1.50 for a DVD???? GAH!!!

Kaze22 · 24th Apr 2006, 20:36

I never said that production costs are the sole contributing factor in higher western media prices. I simply said that matching western prices with China prices is not possible due to wages and cost of production. Obviously the fact that you earn more hence you are willing to pay more is a large factor in the bloated Western pricing.
I think $8-10 is a likely alternative for western media pricing for the near future. If you wanna pay $1.50 than you're just gonna have to move to China, but than again everything in China is cheaper. A bottle of domestic Beer in China is like $1 US and pack of domestic cigs in China ranges from $50 cents US - $10 US. So the you can't really compare apples to oranges.

24th Apr 2006, 13:28	#1
The_Pope Geoff Richards Moderator Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: UK Posts: 2,089	Warner slashes DVD prices to fight piracy in China http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/04..._china_piracy/

24th Apr 2006, 14:30	#5
Spaced_invader Supermodder Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: UK Posts: 493	and then come and seel them in the uk for £15 and above... thanks a lot.. make us feel really special they are.. __________________ email me: echo "'1+&9#1)+/6@)0#+/.%20" \| tr "#--/-=" a-z those that should know, know...

24th Apr 2006, 14:51	#6
Bindibadgi Richard Swinburne bit-tech Staff Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Omnipwntent Posts: 28,226	So, basically the moral of the story is that mass piracy, on a Chineese scale is the only thing that will reduce DVD prices. __________________ Made you look, made you stare, made you clicked this in your underwear! Den of Geek!

24th Apr 2006, 15:20	#8
Nexxo ...like a geek! Moderator Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Birmingham, UK Posts: 15,088	Of course, seeing as in the West we'll still pay the same old price, you will now see a lot of illegal Chinese imports... Reduction of price is an effective deterrent to piracy --and one that doesn't have to result in the manufacturer being out of pocket. Profit margins decrease as prices go down, but sales increase. At some point in the graph (where the lines Profit Margin and Sales intersect), is the optimal price point for maximum profit. __________________ "You actually hope to achieve your ideals, I just use mine as an excuse to hate everything" --specofdust "There is no Real Life, only Away From Keyboard" --gpw111 "...my wife says I can't have any trolls, cause they argue with the dog and eat the fish" --KayinBlack

24th Apr 2006, 15:26	#9
Bindibadgi Richard Swinburne bit-tech Staff Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Omnipwntent Posts: 28,226	or, legal illegal chineese imports, or gifts, as they will be labelled. Nex demostrates the most fundemental concept of economics: finding a price where supply = demand that maximises both sales and revenue. /reminises in A level economics. __________________ Made you look, made you stare, made you clicked this in your underwear! Den of Geek!

24th Apr 2006, 13:46	#2
airchie Mod Master Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Aberdeen, Scotland Posts: 2,087	Just a heads-up. The link to here from the main site is broken. Please feel free to delete this post once its fixed.

24th Apr 2006, 13:50	#3
airchie Mod Master Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Aberdeen, Scotland Posts: 2,087	I think if record companies weren't so greedy in the first place, piracy wouldn't be such a problem.

24th Apr 2006, 14:29	#4
Drexial Supermodder Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 297	forums. there are some typos in there :-p its always good when we can see just how cheep it is to produce DVDs when they can sell them for $1.50 in china and no cheeper then like $8 for movies that are older in the US

24th Apr 2006, 15:08	#7
Callum Supermodder Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: UBC, Vancouver, Canada Posts: 511	I'm liking that solution. Living in Malaysia, where the "problem" of piracy is probably just as bad, I can agree that that is probably the only way to solve it. There would be no way of getting rid of piracy here, short of those measures. I don't even know of a shop on the entire island of Penang, that sells original copies of games. And the only ones who buy original copies of software are companies... Technically, the police try and stop it, but the pirates have it covered. A guy on a walkie talkie at the bottom floor of the mall, and if any cops come in, the shops on the top floors are shut by the time they get there... Sometimes with customers inside Just for 15 minutes or so :P And when the cops come off duty, they'll be there with the rest of us Compare 120 ringgit ($30) for some original DVDs, to fake copies for 4... (about $1). Can you blame us?

24th Apr 2006, 16:59	#10
lepre Supermodder Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Italy \| brescia Posts: 256	well...that means we must pirate more and then we'll have good prices. __________________ Teh Case coming soon............maybe (well...by now it's just a lian li a05b )

24th Apr 2006, 17:22	#11
radodrill Resident EI Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Almost Heaven (WV) Posts: 870	The reason people turn to pirate copies (or peer-2-peer networks) is that DVD/CD/Software manufacturers are charging way too much for their product. I f the prices were more reasonable, more people would be willing to purchase original copies. Suing people for using p2p is not the correct solution; lower prices would be a better alternative. Companies are realising that in the Asian markets they are experiencing low sales volumes because of piracy factories that mass produce "illegal" copies of their products and selling them at affordable rates. the fact that the WB is lowering prices in China is one step in the right direction; yet they should follow this practice Globally; resulting in more revenue based on greatly increased sales volumes, rather than on the exorbitant prices they currently charge.

24th Apr 2006, 17:33	#12
tank_rider Ultramodder Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: London, England Posts: 1,066	If DVD's in this country were £5 a pop i would have shelves of them instead of shelves of burned cd's. FACT. The same goes for music cd's etc. __________________ Main - e5200 @ 3.5GHz (akasa 965) \|\| GA-EP31-DS3L \|\| 2X2GB Crucial Ballistix \|\| xfx GTX 260 \|\| 500GB Seagate 7200.10 sata + 250GB Samsung sata + 160GB Samsung ide \|\| NEC DVDRW \|\| Enermax Liberty 400W \|\| Antec P180 \|\| 22" Fujitsu Siemems TFT Media - X2 4400 @ 2.4GHz \|\| Epox 9NDA3+ \|\| 2GB RAM \|\| 6800gs \|\| 80GB Maxtor Diamond Plus 9 \|\| LG DVD RAM \|\| Iiyama Vision Master Pro 454

24th Apr 2006, 18:00	#14
Kaze22 Supermodder Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Earth Posts: 419	Goes back to the simple business modo of any profit is better than no profit. The companies need to ask themselves would they rather make 50 cents off a Billion people or make 4 dollars of 2 people. The choice is obvious. I made the same argument for PSP UMD movies a while back. When a product is simply not selling the only reasonable thing to do is drop the price astronomically. This same tactic can be used for UMDs you drop the price to $1 and package it with DVD and HD films and you stand to make a profit. But don't expect DVD or HD films to drop to as low as China anytime soon, because one thing we must realize is that prices are comparible to income, and cost of production. The fact that movie distributors can hire the same pirating factories to print and distribute their films at a fraction of the price of what they can do in the west also a huge contributing factor in the low prices in China. DVD production costs less in China because of lower wages, and it's possible to make a profit off selling disks for $1.50. I don't think the same can be done in North America as wages are highers and productions costs to delivery costs are also highers. Last edited by Kaze22; 24th Apr 2006 at 18:07.

24th Apr 2006, 18:06	#15
TGImages Grandpa Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Illinois, US Posts: 160	We've got an unlimted rental plan so we just mostly rent what we want to see. Now if I could buy for $5-$9.99 I'd most likely drop the rental plan and buy instead... or be more inclined to buy a movie I like after renting it. Right now if I like something I'll wait a few years until it's on the "cheap" table/rack/page and then buy it however by that time I've usually decided that I really don't want it enough to buy it at any price. Had the cost been more reasonable up front I would bought it just on impulse. How many others are like this? I'm sure milions and millions. Make it cheap and I'll do it. Make it expensive (relatively) and I'll probably talk myself out of it.

24th Apr 2006, 19:59	#18
unrealhippie Ultramodder Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Sheffield, UK Posts: 1,219	Hmm, I thought they planned to use the higher capacity HD-DVD to include more languages on each disk. I really hope they place most on one disk - then we can import them cheaply and play in english!

24th Apr 2006, 20:09	#19
DXR_13KE Madeira's banana is the best!!! Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Madeira ; Portugal Posts: 6,461	here the normal wage is about 380€, of this 40% is for taxes that are taken out before you get the money, the rest is to pay food, water, electricity, "caixa de previdencia" (something like the retirement money for older people), other taxes on products (from 13% to 21% above the base price of the product depending of the type (computer stuff =21% tax )), fuel for the car,....etc. how much is there for games, movies, music...etc?, so we resort to P2P, in Lisbon lots of people are being caught and put in jaill to wait for judgement(it is normal to wait about 1 month to 1 year (a pedofile was caught and he is in jail waiting for judgement since 2 year ago)), how do they know that you downloaded something? they use P2P software and note down you IP and the time of day, and then they ask your ISP for you adress and name, if you have downloaded music you get a find of 5000€, if you have movies you will see the sun in squares for 3 years..... $1.50 for a DVD???? GAH!!! __________________ *Renegade X - 0.40 Release!* <---- CLICK!

24th Apr 2006, 20:36	#20
Kaze22 Supermodder Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Earth Posts: 419	I never said that production costs are the sole contributing factor in higher western media prices. I simply said that matching western prices with China prices is not possible due to wages and cost of production. Obviously the fact that you earn more hence you are willing to pay more is a large factor in the bloated Western pricing. I think $8-10 is a likely alternative for western media pricing for the near future. If you wanna pay $1.50 than you're just gonna have to move to China, but than again everything in China is cheaper. A bottle of domestic Beer in China is like $1 US and pack of domestic cigs in China ranges from $50 cents US - $10 US. So the you can't really compare apples to oranges.