dacs.doc electric

So What's Gray in Asia?

Illegal software is alive and well in Hong Kong

by Jacqueline Cohen

THE REPUTATION surrounding the Hong Kong software market is certainly deserved. This afternoon, after a long day of teaching, I went to an inconspicuous building in the busy commercial district of Hong Kong called Wan Chai, at 298 "Computer Zone" Hennessy Road. I whittled away the early evening hours with notebook in hand writing down the names of all of the CDs I saw available, half expecting to be escorted out by some plain clothed security guard. The notebook did not even produce a glance from one of the many proprietors or their friends, many of whom were hanging out, playing computer games, watching VCDs, and some even smoking cigarettes. While I was there I also bought a nice soft covered 78 CD holder for HK$50 (US$ 6.40) and a headset for only HK$60 (US$7.70) to use with my laptop when I call home over the Internet through Net2Phone, Just a few blocks down is Hong Kong's newest legitimate computer market, the Wan Chai Computer Center, which is one of three or four "computer shopping malls" located around the city. Small computer hardware and software shops fill the three stories of this market, shops that would remind readers familiar with PC EXPO of those obscure computer companies booths assigned minuscule booths located deep in the corners of the Javits Center. Shops advertising and selling their own high-tech notebooks, desktop models, and accessories intermingle with shops selling well-known name brands. This article is dedicated to the illegal software market, which thrives at the Computer Zone at 198 Hennessy Road. On four floors crammed with small shops, half are selling computer hardware, half illegal software. The prices are set: one CD for HK$40, two for HK$70, three for HK$100. What does one get on one CD for the equivalent of US$5? Here is just a selection of the titles I saw: Windows 98, Office 98, Power Point 97, NT 4.0, Navigator 3.0, Netscape 4.0, Corel Draw 8.0, Corel Draw 7 with Photo Paint, Word 7.0, Usage Excel 7.0, 3D Studio Max 2.5, 3D Graphics Model 2 (which includes 3D Studio and Max, True Space and Auto Cad), Fractal Design Painter 4, Photoshop 4.0 with Corel Draw 6.0, Delphi, Linux Slackware, Star Office 4 for Linux, and the new Lotus Smart-Suite Millennium Edition. Don't be misled. There is no discrimination here in the sales department: For US$5, one can buy Indoor Design, Pool Champion, screen savers, fonts, clip art, and numerous Japanese fighting games. Legal software is available as well. For comparison I saw Windows 98 at HK$1,299 (US$166) and the 98 upgrade for HK$850 (US$109). CD-ROMs are not the only CDs you can buy here. VCDs and CD Porn are also readily available. VCDs run anywhere from HK$60 to HK$100 (US$ 7.70-12.80). The most recent Chinese, Japanese and American films fill the shelves--you can purchase Titanic or a concert video of the deceased Taiwanese diva Teresa Tang. More interesting to me was the widespread availability and range of pornography, generally priced from around HK$30 (US$3.80) to HK$60 (US$ 7.70) apiece, two for HK$100 (US$ 12.80), or even five for HK$ 200 (US$25.70). I wonder if the quality of the content determines the price? Some shops seemed to specialize in Japanese porn and "simulators"; others displayed both well-known English titles and "B" grade flicks: Playboy and Penthouse sharing space with 19 College Girls and The First. The curious thing about the illegal software market is the lack of price discrimination: Linux, Windows 98, Indoor Design, and Titanic all cost about the same. A CD is a CD here, regardless of what has been stored on it. The most amazing disks available are 'Installer Disks,' which contain over 50 top programs for about US $5-- the newest versions of everything on the market packaged on one CD-ROM each 'compressed with its own self-extracting installation utility.' Referring to these "installers" in his article, "Shopping with the Pirates" in Travelers Tales Guides: Hong Kong (1996), A. Lin Newmann tells us that the U.S. retail price for all of these programs would be over US$ 20,000. He writes that the Business Software Alliance "estimated that US$ 15.2 billion in revenues had been lost in 1994 due to piracy, and $4.3 billion of that in Asia alone." Newmann also discovered that most of the CD-ROMS are made in factories over the border in China, available there for a half to a third of the price they command in Hong Kong. Overall, I had a fabulous hour or two wondering what my father is going to request for his birthday. It amazes me what value certain companies put on their pieces of plastic. Perhaps if original software were more reasonably priced, piracy wouldn't be so rampant. It is hard to spend several hundred US. dollars for a CD-ROM that will be outdated by the time you learn how to operate the program! Spending $5, though illegal, is a lot easier. Part of the definition of a pirate is one who robs. Well, who is the robber in this situation?