A policeman in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, oversees an inspection of a local DVD shop on April 21, 2011. Photo: CFP

Piracy used to be the main source of entertainment for a generation of film and music fans. During a time when there were few legitimate ways to find art house films and legally attained DVDs could take a significant chunk out of someone's monthly salary, pirated DVDs were many people's first choice for entertainment. Even now, after 20 years, there are still fans who make a hobby of buying DVDs featuring the works of the directors they love, though these DVDs still tend to be pirated copies.   

Generation of pirates



I still remember when my friends and I would rent DVDs to watch films like Indochine during high school. Most of the DVD shops back then sold pirate DVDs and CDs.

During the late 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century, pirated DVDs and CDs were all the rage. Teenagers like us were able to get access to the films of Quentin Tarantino and other Oscar nominees. Fans of the Japanese, South Korean or European cinema were also able to find Krzysztof Kieslowski's Blue, White and Red or works by Akira Kurosawa.

 Thousands of yuan were spent on piracy during summer holidays when even the retail prices of pirated DVDs were as cheap as an ice-cream - DVD-9s went for 9 yuan ($1.50) while DVD-5s were sold for 4 yuan each.

The sellers often knew the film industry extremely well. Not only could they tell you who Eric Rohmer, Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman were, they also knew what year which master died and how many different editions of a particular film came out after their death.

No wonder that out of my three best friends, one became a lecturer at the Beijing Film Academy after finishing an MFA in film production at the University of South California and the other two became scriptwriters.

A few survivors

With the rise of the Internet, pirated DVD shops gradually closed down one after another. Even most online sellers that were still active when physical shops were having a hard time keeping up eventually switched to other businesses. Two of the Taobao shop owners in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province that used to sell pirated DVDs now sell imported milk powder, which has become a much easier way to make money.

The last survivors were those sellers near art academies or places where fans enjoyed gathering together such as the China Film Archive.

Wang, a Beijing Film Academy graduate, told the Global Times that several years ago there was a popular pirate DVD seller named Li that would always travel around campus carrying a big bag of DVDs. Two o'clock brought him to the literature department, at three he would swing by the acting department and by four the animation department. Students and teachers that bought from Li would keep his mobile number so the next time they needed anything they could just text him. Most of the time, one client would lead to other new clients.

In Beijing's Sanlitun area, two shops are still alive. Most of their products consist of Hollywood movies and American TV series. DVDs are 12 yuan each whereas blue rays cost 20 yuan. The latest films are placed by the door while you can still find old classics as well as European, Japanese and South Korean films if you walk through the shop to the very end where there is a smaller room. Each category is labeled in English, specifically written for the foreigners who live near the place.

The sellers near academies and universities are different from those in Sanlitun or markets selling electronics. Their shops often contain more art house works and documentaries.

The owner of the shop (really just a board with DVDs stacked on top) outside the China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) main gate used to sell DVDs to the university's library. The saleswoman told the Global Times that most of their customers are teachers from the university and visiting lecturers from outside the city who  are looking to buy a lot of films to take back home.

Lausson Liu, a lecturer at the university, told the Global Times that he is a regular client of the shop outside CAFA. He explained that the shop often has avant-garde works he can't find online. 

"When I bought DVDs a long time ago the resolution wasn't high-definition quality. Now, pirate DVD sellers are starting to reproduce some high quality classics," he said, adding that teachers sometimes need to show clips from artistic films and piracy is their only choice when they can't find what they need from other sources.

Re-raising the black flag?

It's worth mentioning that through all my interviews, everyone hesitated to answer questions or reveal their names. Of course this is because everyone knows piracy is illegal.

Since video sites started obtaining licenses for American television shows and movies, a lot of popular shows and films can be found on websites such as Sohu TV, iQiyi and Tencent's movie channel. This pretty much sounded the death knell for the piracy market.

However, after the government and the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television announced that international digital content would have to go through the same application process as films and shows broadcast on TV, people began to wonder if the piracy market would get another chance at life.

According to new regulations, video sites can only show a limited number of overseas content. Additionally, sites now need to submit an entire season of a TV series at once including subtitles for review and content can only be streamed once they pass review by related government institutions.

While previously TV shows would come out in China only a few hours after their original broadcast, with these new regulations a significant "time difference" between release on Chinese video sites and their original airing is sure to occur.

With this in mind many are wondering just how patient fans of overseas TV will be when they can choose to either wait a few extra weeks or maybe even months to see their favorite shows through legitimate channels, or head to a pirate DVD seller, either online or offline, to satisfy their needs almost immediately.