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Show AUG31 - 2000 - RED THE RL - RX1 Lst5SSS rill China's Shot at the Bootleg Market b LeGrand Rogers hhh. 20 million people scurrying outside my dorm room, all trying to jam into one of the thousands of Volkswagen cabs. This is what I woke up to and went to sleep to while in Shanghai, China. The experience was unlike any- thing you could get in Europe, South America or anywhere else in the world, for that matter. My trip was a fantasy before I left, a dream while I T- cheap DVD of "The Matrix," only to discover it was pirated by some guy with a digital camera in a Taiwanese movie theater. The quality isn't exactly all that and a bag of chips. When it came to the VCD concept, I never quite caught on so well. From what I could gather, it was a really cheap rendition of the DVTD, meaning that it was recorded in analog and later converted to digital. You could just begin to imagine what a bootleg VHS recording of "Me, Myself & Irene" must sound and was look like. Lake City So what does the Chinese government do about it? Hardly anything at all, actually. I never saw a single person apprehended by any there and a distant memory before my flight even hit the Salt runway. It's odd, what one remembers from his or her dreams, isn't it? One of my most prevalent memories is the ceaseless hustle and bustle of the street merchants. Obviously, anyone would have expected J - that; I, however, did not expect to be approached with illegal products in such a nonchalant manner. After all, I was in communist China, the last remaining true autocratic empire. Crime? Don't they shoot drug dealers here? Regardless of the penalties, criminals always find their niche. I'm not sex offendtalking about hard-cor- e ers here; the focus is on street peddlers of entertainment software. Imagine walking down an alley coined "silk road," a street loaded with merchandise selling for less than half the market price in the United States. We're talking North . Face, Columbia, Abercrombie&Fitch, gold, pearls and shirts that say New York Jazz. Yeah, most of it is fake. As you struggle through the 100,000-persocrowd, you feel someone tug on your shorts. Turning around to see if your wallet has been yanked, you see a scrubby merchantman whispering in broken English, n "You like CD?". All the other merchandise hang- ing from anything in the alley that will support the weight is legal real or fabricated. But, the CDs, DVDs, and VCDs are all black market. You can get anything from Michael Bolton's Christmas album to "The Cell." No joke. I was offered movies that hadn't even come out yet. How do they get this stuff ? Most of what you'll encounter is recordcrap. The CDs are half-rat- e aren't that to ings guaranteed work, or even contain the music on the label, and the DVDs and VCDs are even funnier. You may think you've scored on a Shanghai, China's nt stmts art crowded with people and pirated entertainment The New York Times officer. Granted, the vendors were incognito for their transactions, but there were also so many of them. One did not walk away thinking it was a discouraged product line. Why the concern? Because America's record companies are losing money on the importation of pirated CDs, DVDs and VCDs. U.S. Customs recently reported that China was the No. l source of pirated goods seized in the U.S. from fiscal years 1996-9What the Chinese government intends to do is up in the air; however, with the consideration of China's admission into the World Trade Organization, the decision had better come soon. The products are crap, at least when it comes to the music and movies. Every once in awhile, you'll get a great buy, but the likelihood of 8. - ri!(i0T& building a quality library through street purchases is nil to none. What's the worry, then? Isn't the threat of online trading more prevay vendor? lent than some After Not necessarily. all, where do you think these vendors are getting the software? We, as Americans, tend to forget that a very small percentage of the world's population enjoys the advantages of the Internet on a personal level. Even I don't have a hard drive to put tons of music on. And even if I did, I would probably still enjoy playing my pirated CDs over my stolen, online, mpss. back-alle- s ,45- las EXPECT THE WORLD Jyf yon can kyycyyAnM DISCRSaT continued from page Rl 0 can :' '. own importance and the importance of his country plague his dreams. Each of the other main characters experiences a similar obsession with his or her social presentation, such as when a dinner party strangely turns into a play and one of the characters worries about not knowing the lines. Luis Bunuel's film is critical of the bourgeoisie and its incomprehension of human suffering and experience outside its own limited world. 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