U.S. says Malaysia's forced price cuts on DVDs and CDs wont work

U.S. assistant secretary of commerce for market access and compliance, William Lash, has criticized Malaysia's plans to curb enormous entertainment piracy by forcing publishers to lower prices claiming that only way to curb piracy is to impose tougher penalties, such as prison sentences, for pirates.

Malaysia's minister for domestic trade and consumer affairs, Muhyiddin Yassin, has urged consumers to shy away from highly priced foreign movies and music in order to force the movie and recording industries to lower prices. According to him, Malaysian domestic movie releases are prices at around $2.50 and piracy for those titles is virtually non-existent, but for foreign releases that cost $8 or more (VCD is de facto standard for original movies in Malaysia) are the ones that get pirated.

Mr. Lash flew to Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, to pressure Malaysian government to drop its idea to get the entertainment prices down. He said that the American business losses in Malaysia due piracy were down from 2001 figures of $316M to $242M in 2002, mostly due harder policy towards piracy. He called for prison sentences to professional pirates and more active role from Malaysian government in fight against piracy.

Mr. Yassin was quoted today to have said "What is suitable for us, we do that way."

Sources:

MSNBC #1
MSNBC #2

Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 8 Jul 2003 14:28

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17 comments

Jice

Seems that Mr. Lash is feeling a little bit of pressure himself from the MPAA. Can't have those Hollywood folks loosing their livelihood; mansions, drugs, life in the fast lane, wild sex with everyone. Those thieves are making more money than some small countries (almost 9 billion a year). I am glad somebody (as insignificant as their market share may be) is willing to say, "Piss off and lower your prices"! Hurray for Malaysia!

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8.7.2003 23:20 #1

Toiletman

Well said. Ya know, these Superstars think they're so big, and wanna earn every single cent, even though they don't give a shit about a couple of $100 bills. But who are we to judge?

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!! KHORNE SHALL DESTROY ALL!!! BLOOD!!! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!! KILL!!! ALL WEAKLINGS SHALL BE OBLITERATED!!! NO ONE SHALL ESCAPE KHORNE!!! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!
Note: This does not apply to me, as I am not a weakling.

9.7.2003 03:08 #2

mystic

Well its about time someone told them the price is to high and so must they be (smokin old tennis shoes)the RIAA and all others with a hand out to the gov to crack down is bullsh*t where were they with the cassett or vcr on the market ... they are only pissed due to their code being broken by a 15 year old and the fact that computers alow more axcess to more people ... why not write a better protection one that most people cant break ? because they cant 2 pizzas 4 letters of mellow yellow and any kid could de-code it and they are running scared of what to do... lets see dont down load it just pull it off pay per view or wait till the dvd is released and back it up... thats what they are pushing for... sad when what most people want is a price cut $5.00 for old movies and $8.00 for new stuff and they would sell out everywhere... hey how many people go to walmart and check out the sale bin or the older less expencive movies? alot or walmart wouldn't do it... so maybe its time that the RIAA takes a clue on what the public wants...

Im out of here.... peace out

9.7.2003 06:55 #3

Toiletman

I'm gonna fuck the RIAA up with my cd cases. The corners are especially sharp. Mystic, you seem like Eyes Only.

9.7.2003 13:02 #4

seanbyrne

$8 is what I consider extremely cheap for a movie. In Ireland, one can expect to pay �30 - �40 per movie. Even older movies don't go much cheaper than �30. I'd wonder what CDs are priced like in Malaysia ;-)

9.7.2003 13:43 #5

Oriphus

Sean, where do you pay that sort of money for DVD's? I got one in Kildare for 25 euros, new release.

Im gonna find you, and im coming to get YOU!

9.7.2003 16:18 #6

Sefy

I've recently been buying a lot of movies on DVD, but only because I found a wonderful webpage in London/UK that ships to Israel and they have great prices, if it weren't for their cheap prices, I wouldn't bother buying movies.

I Just hope Malasyia doesn't give up to the US! they will show them exactly how Piracy should be handled! if prices are lower, there is no point or sense in buying a pirated copy

Best Regards,
Sefy Levy,
Certified Computer Technician.

10.7.2003 01:22 #7

mystic

its like undercut the middle man hey how about sony starts selling them cheaper by cutting out walmart and other retail chains. like if you buy direct then we'll sell them as cheap as we sell them to the large chains... we all know walmart dosnt buy them for 10.00 (new release) likely to be even less ....all they need is a website... oh yeah they already have one so add a link and make it secure... instant answer why would anyone waste their time if they can get the dvds cheap ....anyway what ever happened to the US goverment stepping in and making the large companies lower ing the price on dvds for over charging all of us ....

10.7.2003 04:36 #8

mystic

Toiletman: Eyes Only .... nice yeah well we all need to band together to make it work.... and I like the cd case idea...... but really everyone what we need iswe as cunsmers do we buy junk 2 songs off an alblum or a computer program that dosnt work as promised . hey my web cam quit working the day I put XP on my system thank you microsoft for making the more technology obsolete...... if we refuse to buy the media and just hook up our computers up to our radios and tape to cd through the inline or mic then the RIAA can kiss our colective A*s's.

I'm outta here Peace out

10.7.2003 05:59 #9

GrayArea

Build more Prisons! Throw more people in jail! Harsher sentencing guidelines! It�s all working so well in the US�s �war on drugs�. It�s gotta work on the �infringers� in Malaysia too, right?

Info for the daft. THIS IS SARCASM.

We mustn't lower ourselves to the level of those we loathe, lest we become loathsome ourselves.

10.7.2003 12:14 #10

maryjayne

Being from the US, I think the US government should leave other countries ALONE! It is complete BS that the US has to step into every other countries business. Personally even if I had to pay a little more for international shipping, I would buy all of my music, games, and DVDs from another country.

For the peeps in Malaysia, keep up the great ideas and dont listen to a word the US government says! The congress is full of liars anyway!

Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
- Benjamin Franklin

Time is never wasted when you are wasted all the time.

10.7.2003 19:07 #11

QUAKEDS

YEAPPPPPPPPP,,, WE AND ONLY WEEE CAN MAKE IT WORK ,,, this guy Mr. Lash,,, what a moron''

Malaysia ,, rocks

Mierdasolf (shi''t-solf) in english ,,the money makers with this no funcional solfware.

The sad part,,,, we are still buying and making them,,,, plain richhhhhhhh

who undertand humankind????

17.7.2003 22:18 #12

Litnrod

Rock On Muhyiddin Yassin !!!!

I'm American and I can say -- I'm sooooo tired of bein bled out of every red cent by corporate America because of it -- don't get me wrong -- I love my country -- but there is some $h|t seriously broken here and it needs to get fixed.

But this whole article just goes to prove one thing -- corporate greed reaches into the goverment(like we didn't already know that)

19.7.2003 08:53 #13

Oriphus

You think you have it bad??? In the UK we are rip-off central. I bought a �700 camera lens in the UK and was looking on a website in the US and it was $499. Thats like �320 or something. I got the best price in the UK, yet the US is still less than half the price.

Im gonna find you, and im coming to get YOU!

19.7.2003 18:59 #14

Sefy

Try moving to Israel and then see how bad things are here, and you'll kiss the ground you walk on.

Best Regards,
Sefy Levy,
Certified Computer Technician.

20.7.2003 09:03 #15

zhaf

yo just to make thing clear to you guys!!!

1 us dollar=4 ringgit malaysia

so now the normal price of cd in malaysia is about RM40=10USD and it is kinda expensive for us in malaysia.....that why we tend to buy pirated cd for about RM5=1.3USD....can u guys se the diff here.....malaysia is making a good step for us!!

F*ck with me then your a fagg@t!!!

28.7.2003 07:49 #16

ingve

A few months to late to add to the discussion, but just to give some light on why people here end up with pirated copies, there are no minimum wage laws here in Malaysia. Lowest I've seen in the capital is MYR3.60 /hour, which is slightly less than USD1. I'm assuming that it goes lower in suburban and rural areas.

For the record, the cinemas here are always packed when new movies open, even though pirated copies always make it to our shores before the movie premieres.

I really believe that lowering the prices of CDs and VCDs would affect the buying patterns here largely because of what we earn and the prices of things that come from countries with stronger currencies.

But the largest reason for piracy i've found among my peers (and myself) is because of Malaysia's strict censorship laws. Half the movies released never make it to our cinemas or shelves. The other half is often chopped up so badly you bare understand what's going on.

Lord of the Rings, for example, had a lot of fight scenes censored from our cinemas because of "excessive violence". Any scene where 2 people kiss is censored because it is considered "lewd". Schindler's List never made it here legally because of "sensitive issues".

For those of us who would have gotten the original anyway are unable to for too many titles aren't allowed in our market. Shipping it from overseas would just cost way too much for us. (I for one, am a college student earning near minimum wage).

In response to statements saying we aren't doing any kind of enforcements on piracy laws, there are hardly any pirates around anymore, and manay of them even started getting violent with our police and other enforcers.

I believe that the Malaysian government is doing fine by cracking down the pirates and placing a ceiling price on CDs, but right now I think it's being placed a little too low; MYR25 (USD6.25) for foreign music artistes and MYR21 for local CDs. The industry here is getting a little hurt, but to be fair, I believe more people will be going original now. I'm one of them :P

26.11.2003 07:35 #17

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