BLACK-MARKET BANGKOK
Former Filmmaker editor Chuck Stephens penned this engaging report from Soi Thonglor, the street he lives on “deep in the heart of Bangkok… where intellectual property rights aren’t exactly chief among local law enforcement’s concerns.” His “Ten Best” list (Number 1: Tropical Malady) includes a number of titles seen on bootleg DVDs Stephens picked up at his local grocery store. In the article, Stephens points out that apathetic distributors worldwide are causing dedicated cineates to rely on cheap black market DVDs just to keep up with the artform.
Also great reading, although not on the web, unfortunately, is Wired‘s cover story on “darknet” distribution of bootlegged media, the pyramid-like structure that causes the latest CD or DVD to show up on Kazaa or Limewire or the recent busted BitTorrent, which Wired does write about.
