The Global Reach of the film industries of Asia
Question 2: What steps can the Asian film industry take to deal with the piracy problem?
In this case, we have seen Asian film industry experienced a flourishing time and some movies were successfully exported to overseas markets. However, a crucial challenge that the industry faced is piracy. There are couple of ways that if work together, may effectively suppress pirated films.
Firstly, film is embedded with intellectual properties. The most direct and durable way to protect the right is through legislation. Film makers could call for a strict law against piracy. Since the film industry is an emerging business which will greatly contribute to local economy, governments attach a high importance on the industry. Therefore it is rationale for them to increase their efforts to crack down on piracy. In specific, imitating the anti-piracy law of western countries would be a shortcut.
Secondly, legislation may not be able to control pirated films in overseas markets. Asian film makers could cooperate with professional anti-piracy associations and alliance of movie makers to officially release copies. There were few successful cases of international collaboration such as “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” which enable overseas Asian communities to reach them either in theatre or by official DVDs. If they can access legal copies, they won’t buy pirated copies so that those pirated copies would be vanished