Archive for the ‘Hong Kong’ Category

Asia at the Cutting Edge?

Tuesday, May 30th, 2006

Today (5/30/06), Berkman’s Digital Media in Asia Project co-founder Eric Priest will give an informal lunchtime talk on Asia’s role in shaping the future global entertainment industries. Info is as follows:

Berkman Tuesday Luncheon Series, Tuesday, May 30 – 12:30 pm
Berkman Conference Room, Berkman Center
1587 Mass. Ave., Harvard Law School, Cambridge MA

Guest: Eric Priest
Topic: Asia at the Cutting Edge?

Some believe Asia is at the cutting edge of twenty-first century entertainment industry business models. A combination of high copyright piracy levels and high-tech populations has led entertainment companies in places like China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea to embrace the internet and emerging digital and mobile technologies as they seek innovative new revenue sources. This includes a massive new market for citizen-created media (music and movies) on the internet in China. What are the trends and are they really leading to sustainable business models for the rest of the world to emulate? Is the conservative state-run media in China creating a strong market for alternative, citizen-created Internet media and what are the implications for Chinese society, politics, and the entertainment industries? With all the emphasis on technology, is creativity increasingly an afterthought?

Eric Priest is a research fellow in the Berkman Center’s project on Internet Filtering, and a cofounder of Berkman’s Digital Media in Asia Project. He is also a visiting researcher at Harvard Law School, and an adjunct professor of law at Chicago-Kent College of Law.

Bio: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/eric_priest
Digital Media in Asia project blog: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/dmablog/

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Posted in China, Hong Kong, Intellectual Property Law, Internet, Mobile Music, Music, Piracy, South Korea, Taiwan | 3 Comments »

Arrests and lawsuits continue in Hong Kong for File Sharing

Monday, May 15th, 2006

A teenager was arrested in Hong Kong for hosting 600 songs for download on his computer, and a court sided with the movie industry, requiring internet service providers to turn over the names of users sharing movies online.

Speaking privately to people in the Hong Kong entertainment industry last week, there is pessimism that these tactics will yield results. The fact is, they acknowledge, that young people view the likelihood of getting sued or arrested on par with the likelihood of winning the lottery.

Posted in Film/DVD, Hong Kong, Internet, Music, P2P, Piracy | Comments Closed

Live from Music Matters Asia

Thursday, May 11th, 2006

I’m currently in Hong Kong attending the Music Matters Asia music industry conference, where, unsurprisingly, digital media and internet file sharing is the hot topic. The slogan of Day 1: mobile is the future.  The primary growth area (and really the only meaningful growth area) for music through 2010 is monetized mobile downloads.

Here are some highlights from yesterday’s panel discussions.  I’ll add info about more highlights over the next day or two.

-Major labels in Asia claim to embrace and look forward to digital, online music distribution as an opportunity more than a challenge.  I’m not sure if this was conference-induced exuberance or whether it’s a real sentiment (probably a little of both).  I’m also not sure whether this professed excitement is shared by the major label home offices in New York and London.  It would not surprise me if Asia executives were in fact more rosy about the future than their bosses because high piracy rates have historically forced music companies in Asia to be flexible and adjust to new situations, so embracing new revenue sources is natural for them.

-I thought the best panel of the day was “Meet the Neighbors,” the only non-music industry panel.  On this panel were executives from “neighboring” industries: videogaming/online gaming, television, and mobile communications.  They raised two of the most prescient points made all day.  First, one of the panelists remarked: I’ve been listening all day and I haven’t heard anyone talk about musicians.

1) Everyone talks about ringtones, downloading, market share, but what about the artists?  Cliche, yes, but it is an absolutely key point that the industry can only survive if people are able to connect and experience artists and technology and business models enable and encourage artists to create great music.

2) The industry has to get over it’s centralist, top-down mentality.  Music is not just what record companies distribute to passive consumers.  Consumers today want to create, and share their creations.  They want technologies and business models that enable that and are seeking and finding those regardless of what the business model record companies push.

Posted in China, Hong Kong, Internet, Mobile Music, Music | 2 Comments »

Hong Kong Man Sentenced to Three Months Jail Time for Bittorrent Use

Friday, November 18th, 2005

In the first-ever bittorrent file sharing criminal prosecution, a Hong Kong man, Chan Nai-Ming, was sentenced to three months in jail November 7 for making available online copies of the movies “Miss Congeniality”, “Daredevil” and “Red Planet” without the owners’ authorization.

In the ruling, the judge acknowledged the man did not gain financially from making the files available, but said that fact and the high prices of legitimate DVDs are no justification for infringing copyright and do not allow him to escape liability. The judge also indicated that future convictions could lead to even stiffer penalties.

Customs officials claim that bittorrent use in Hong Kong has dropped by 80 percent since Chan’s arrest.

The ruling did not extend liability to downloading files, only uploading them–a fact that upset the entertainment industry, which wanted liability for both.

But that distinction does not seem applicable to bittorrent. From the South China Morning Post:

“Kevin Pun Kwok-hung, associate professor of computer science and law at the University of Hong Kong, pointed out that BT technology works with the downloaders also automatically becoming uploaders, and questioned the wisdom of launching criminal prosecutions against users of such technology instead of leaving it to businesses to take civil action. ‘If you say by placing something on the internet, you are committing a crime, you are saying all BT downloaders are criminals because their computers are downloading and uploading,’ he said.”

“‘The key issue is whether placing something on the internet amounts to distribution, but I personally don’t find the legal argument convincing — it amounts to authorisation but not distribution.'”

Posted in Film/DVD, Hong Kong, Internet, P2P, Piracy | Comments Closed