This DVD is Brought to You By: Randolph Hobson Guthrie III

in den 80ern ging es um drogen, im 21. jhd um bootleg-dvds. ich sehe es schon vor mir. in 20 jahren gibt es einen film darüber mit dem entsprechenden johnny depp nachfolger. ziemlich lustige geschichte, und gar nicht so uneinträglich, 25.000$ im monat...

So it's a little surprising when the Ministry for Public Security agrees to cooperate with the US. For the Chinese, it makes perfect sense. Randy's case is a unique opportunity for them to show that they're tough on piracy while arguing that Chinese citizens aren't the only ones to blame. It allows them to point out that the Americans complain the loudest and yet one of their own is a leading violator. The Chinese bureaucrats have a keen sense of irony.

[...]

"How do they know where you live?" Zimny asks. Before Randy can answer, Zimny glances at the stack of express mail envelopes beside the couch. On the preprinted labels, Randy has listed his penthouse as the return address, home phone number included.

[...]

Operation Spring won't have any effect on China's counterfeit DVD industry, says Anne Stevenson-Yang, the former managing director for the Beijing-based US Information Technology Office, an umbrella trade group that represents tech companies. "The whole thing was so sordid and useless," she says. The Chinese government is not interested in protecting private property rights, she adds.

In fact, piracy is the unofficial official policy. The state licenses many retailers of pirated DVDs and collects taxes on their sales. And, in a country where the economy is still tightly monitored and regulated, there's every reason to believe that the government has some control over the illicit DVD market.

[...]

But the authorities didn't follow the trail any further. They didn't arrest the middlemen. They didn't trace the discs back to the factories that produced them. They didn't investigate the sources of the original digital files. The extensive network that supplied Randy's business is healthy and intact.