Apple Says No to Asia
Filed under: Disney, Home Entertainment
Not only do movie pirates ruin things for the studios and the cinemas, but now they're hurting the innocent citizens with no connection to the business, too. Thanks to such heavy piracy in all of Asia, there will be no iTunes movie store for billions of people living in that part of the world. Apple, who just announced their new movie downloads Tuesday, has said their new services are not available in Asia, and there's a good chance it will not be available anytime soon, if ever. Currently the music-only iTunes software has versions in Japan and Australia, but it isn't clear whether they will be given access to the new movies.
It's important to remember that before Apple introduced iTunes to the U.S., we had a huge problem with illegal music downloading, which, subsequently, was curbed significantly after its arrival. So, for Apple (or could it be the MPAA?) to deny nations with rampant piracy a service that may actually be beneficial to them and their anti-piracy campaigns is pretty stupid.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-15-2009 @ 6:20AM
kj said...
Dr. Eric Schmidt has very many mafia friends, some of whom produce p_rn, even child p_rn from captive women and children, which is how Google got sued for profiteering from deliberatly promoted child p_rnography & why they withheld the identities of child p_rn distributors from police. http://endmafia.com
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1-15-2009 @ 6:20AM
kj said...
Dr. Eric Schmidt has very many mafia friends, some of whom produce p_rn, even child p_rn from captive women and children, which is how Google got sued for profiteering from deliberatly promoted child p_rnography & why they withheld the identities of child p_rn distributors from police. http://endmafia.com
Reply
9-15-2006 @ 2:25AM
Mithun Paul said...
This is a very sad thing to happen. A company with vision like apple's and the kind of products which people love, it is sad they are doing something like this. This makes us lose respect for a company like that. I vow that I shall not buy a single apple product until they get their heads straight. This is totally discriminating people. Rather than give them a chance to get better at things. Not that one customer goes down. But I vow to spread the word about this kind of atrocities which apple are inflicting.
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9-15-2006 @ 3:30AM
marty said...
About time someone stood up to the rampant piracy in Asia where its getting to ridiculous levels. Hopefully, this will force the governments in Asia to act to stamp out piracy with heavy fines and imprisonment. Well done, Apple!
Now, only if Amazon took a similar hard stance but given Amazon illegally sends out R1 DVDs to international territories, thus breaching territorial rights then I doubt they will follow Apple's brave lead.
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9-15-2006 @ 5:28AM
GhostDoggy said...
How exactly are 'movie pirates' hurting the Cinemas? It didn't take a movie pirates to get me to stop spending money on crappy cinema experiences. I can say the same for my wife, too. To blame everything on movie pirates is a load of BS, but I am sure it makes it 'newsworthy' of the yellow variety, no?
BTW, one of our cats got IBD, but I am sure it was stress related to movie pirates, too.
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9-15-2006 @ 6:53AM
Mike said...
Reply to GhostDoggy who said "How exactly are 'movie pirates' hurting the Cinemas? It didn't take a movie pirates to get me to stop spending money on crappy cinema experiences."
In Sri Lanka, for example, the DVD of "Snakes on a Plane" was available two days before the US theatrical release even. If something like that is available for less than US$2, why would they spend US$5 in the theatre in Sri Lanka, or more when getting back to the US! The budgets for movies are huge these days, creating a standard of quality that the public wants them to maintain, and movie sales or cinematic viewing is the way that they get paid. Thus the piracy hurts the business.
And even with my emphatic POV on this it's still hard to turn down such a good deal...showing the need for it to be curbed if possible.
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9-15-2006 @ 10:07AM
Sam said...
There's no way this was Apple's decision. This had to be the movie companies' call. I can't see any rationale for Apple not wanting to set up shop in another market unless the people supplying the goods don't want the goods sold there.
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9-15-2006 @ 11:06AM
David said...
Why does the author imply that illegal movie/music downloads where curbed in the US by Apple providing itunes. Illegal downloads stopped because of the increased risk of lawsuits and itunes did a really good job of providing a legal outlet to continue downloading. China doesn't have that same legal pressure that puches people to legally download so why would apple have any incentive to implement something that the market has no motivation to use?
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9-16-2006 @ 4:23PM
suckacanucka said...
what about the fact that the Canadian itunes store still doesnt even have tv shows or music videos for sale... let alone movies ever getting here.. how ridiculous is that...
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9-18-2006 @ 4:48PM
acevader said...
Illegal downloads/piracy has not stopped. Or even decreased significantly. It has just gone further underground.
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