Warner will chinesischen Raubkopierern zuvorkommen

--- Extra für China hat Warner Bros. erstmals seine normalen Verwertungsfenster bei neuen Filmen auf den Kopf gestellt -- wenn auch erst mal bei einem absoluten B-Movie:

In a groundbreaking response to movie piracy, Warner Bros. Entertainment released its latest film on DVD in China the same day it debuted in U.S. theaters. The goal for Warner is to battle rampant piracy in China by giving movie fans a legitimate alternative to bootlegs. But the boldness of Warner's action, which it took last week with no fanfare, was tempered by its choice of movie: "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," a relatively low-budget film that the studio had not planned on releasing in Chinese theaters. Nevertheless, several industry executives said they believed it was the first time a major U.S. studio had taken a movie scheduled for a wide-scale theatrical run and released it simultaneously on DVD in another country. "It's a necessary move," said movie industry analyst Tom Adams of Adams Media Research. "It's obviously not as good as having control of the Chinese market, but it's about the next best thing that you can do." Craig M. Hoffman, a spokesman for Warner Bros.' anti-piracy efforts, said the studio was not necessarily looking to apply the same strategy to combat bootlegging in the U.S. or other countries. "That region presents, if you will, the 'perfect storm' of piracy," Hoffman said, noting that Chinese pirates do not have to contend with the government quotas and review boards that restrict Hollywood's access to the market. "This region needed something like this to see if [a] legitimate product could compete under these conditions." ... According to an April report by the U.S. trade representative, at least 90% of virtually every type of copyrighted work sold in China is counterfeit. China has only about 2,500 screens and 1.3 billion people, and the Chinese government allows only a few U.S. movies to be exhibited there. Most of the studios' movies reach Chinese viewers only on disc or videotape, which usually arrive months after the movie had its premiere in U.S. theaters. Bootleggers in China face no such shortages or delays — they can download illicitly recorded copies of almost any movie within days of its U.S. premiere, then burn those copies onto discs. As a result, Chinese movie fans typically buy pirated versions long before legitimate versions of the films become available.