Police Raid On Pantip Pirates

[udon]

The Cockatoos must have been asleep

What's the score up at Fortune, still 150b for software?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

yep. soft for 150/CD, 400/DVD

movies 120/DVD-5 crappy copy, 150/DVD-9 - better or master copy.

some gives 1 free for every 5 or 10DVDs

good boys at Fortune can let you preview. as in Chinatown - nobody buys without preview first.

other movies are at 100baht +11th free.

music/karaoke - didn't check

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks Oleg.

There's a dealer there, by the escalators, called Kat or Cat, who has a good attitude

Skippy nl, if you go by taxi, tell him you want Four-toon Hotel.

I had a hard time trying to tell my cabbie first time I went there using normal English pronunciation

Does the IT center have a website?

[GoodHeart]

its in terminal decline anyway , the DVDs and CDs are many times corrupted or scratched, dont work.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I beg to differ. While that *may* have been true a year or so ago they're making perfect copies of DVD's today. Such has been my experience with DVD media over the past 3 months. Within the past several months there were several media stories touting substantial investments made in hardware on the part of the counterfeiting syndicates. Newspaper reports stated they'd invested in state-of-the-art machines. Everything I've puchased has indeed been flawless since reading these reports.

Just last week, I was at Fortune IT and purchased a DVD of Apple's iLife. Then, once back home, my machine spit it out without recognizing it. Tried it several times before I had a hunch and checked the media. Sure enough, it was an unrecognized- by my machine- DVD format. The following day, I went back to the vendor and explained the situation. No arguments whatsoever- I was just invited to wait 20 minutes while they burned my selection onto an appropriate DVD format.

And sure enough, 20 minutes passed and they had a new DVD burned for me. This second DVD they presented was the correct media, and later installed without a hitch.

Edited April 9, 2005 by GoodHeart

[bambob]

i see that many of the software shops are converting over to sell cameras , you have to wonder if the mall can take so many camera shops all in one place selling the same selection of cameras . it wont be long before the market becomes saturated as there are only so many thais who are likely to want/can afford a digital camera.

just last week i tried the Kodak instant print service on the ground floor and the machine was faulty it wouldnt read my SD card ,so i had to go to a photo shop in pratunam nearby . so no way to get your bluetoothed phone pictures printed on that instant service.!

[hokiefan]

I'm amazed they managed to confiscate over 10,000 but managed only 4 arrests. Were these 4 the only ones with CD's or were there a large number of sellers who were not arrested? At least at Pantip the porno is not openly displayed like it is on Sukhumvit and Silom where any 6 year old can see pornographic images.

These actions by the police probably are done for the US which more or less requires countries to show evidence they are "trying" to protect IP rights in exchange for aid.

[worldwalker]

From the vendours I deal with normally they know ahead of time when the raids will occur. I have a feeling the 4 that were nicked didnt pay their tea dosh!!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Probably. Last visa run I went to Penang, Malaysia. A DVD copied game/movie costs about 50 Baht there. Had Yai was only slightly more expensive. Then I get to Krabi - 100B per DVD, which seems the general going rate around most of the country. I ask the seller in Krabi about this discrepancy and he explains it's police payoffs. Heard the same answer at Pata Plaza in BKK. (So I guess the police in Malaysia aren't as corrupt, but they don't enforce piracy laws very much?)

[ovenman]

(So I guess the police in Malaysia aren't as corrupt, but they don't enforce piracy laws very much?)

There is actually a big crackdown going on in Malaysia at the moment. I was in Penang last week. A clerk at one of the ubiquitous DVD shops informed me that the shops generally have to close for a half-hour or so every day while the police do their walk-thru. Since all of these businesses are located on the upper floors of the Malay shopping malls, I assume that word filters up from the ground floor rather quickly!