Arg!

In my past life as an employed person in America (apparently a status that’s becoming more exclusive thanks to the economic meltdown), I spent a good deal of time helping a major motion picture studio develop workflows for bringing movies into “emerging markets.”  “Emerging markets” is an optimistic euphemism for the third world, or more specifically, third world countries where a movie studio stands a chance at convincing people to pay for a legit product.

In Mombasa I can’t walk a block without seeing pirated DVDs.  They’re actually quite fascinating.  There’s usually a dozen or so feature films on each DVD, thanks to heavy compression and low resolution (they don’t technically meet the DVD spec, but they play in most DVD players anyway), and the movies typically revolve around a theme.  The titles on the packaging might be, for example:

• Flags of Our Fathers
• Ben Affleck vs. Leonard DiCaprio
• Western Classic Film

and the themes, respectively:

• WWII movies, with Gorillas in the Mist thrown in for good measure.
• Movies that star either actor, or at least actors who look similar
• Movies with lead actors wearing wide-brimmed hats, including Indiana Jones

It’s enjoyable to try to identify what the theme truly is, as they are not always immediately apparent.  The packaging often boldly claims “90 movies!” (they count each chapter as a movie) and “Blu-ray” (?) and maybe they’ll put Apple’s logo on there too, just in case you are a sucker for brand loyalty.  The packaging is slick, the DVDs are professionally replicated, and the overall experience is decent— there are usually no people getting up in front of the camcorder or coughing, or anything like that.

A typical price is 300 shillings, or about 4 dollars.  How much is a “normal” DVD, you ask?  I’ve seen a few legitimate DVDs for sale in the supermarket.  Typically TV shows, each DVD contains a single episode and sells for over 10 dollars, which is a bad deal even with an American income.  It’s no wonder that the pirated DVDs do so well.

The business person in me wonders what a movie studio could possibly do about this.  It seems that the discs are made and packaged in China or India, and depending on how they reach Africa, it’s quite possible that they hit East Africa’s biggest port first (coincidentally my home), and then go from there.  Assuming nothing can be done to stop the transport (Kenya has bigger problems, like actual pirates from Somalia taking Mombasa-bound boats for ransom), and assuming the manufacturers can’t be stopped for similar reasons, how can big business compete?

The short answer is that they can’t, and they should just wait for the market to “emerge” so people can buy the more expensive DVDs.  In the meantime, with no legit products for sale, I figure it couldn’t hurt to look more closely at how these things are put together, and in the process, maybe watch a few movies as well 🙂

The irony of this compilation’s title was not lost on me…