There are people in Hong Kong doing this all the time and I know them personally.
Look, our friend Breetai has already said he won't sell these for a profit. Those acquaintances of yours in Hong Kong are dishonest thieves. I don't get how there is some short-circuit in Chinese morality, as if it is encoded into their DNA. Whether it's Hong Kong, Taiwan, or China (and I guess Singapore too), they can care less about intellectual property rights and copyrights. I had a friend from Hong Kong in college who'd tell me, "Why should I pay $40 for a Playstation game when I can buy a stack of them for $10 in Hong Kong?" It's because the crap in Hong Kong is copied and those who worked to create the game don't get any money for their work thanks to countless Chinese who feel no remorse for buying bootlegged crap.
So in short, give it a rest, dude. Breetai obviously has more decency and moral fiber than a heck of a lot of people in Hong Kong.
Well, I have been to China and some other east Asian countries and I can't really argue with what you said. But still...
In other news, these are of much better quality than your average bootlegged disc. That is very noticeable.
Agreed on all points. I never insinuated breetai would sell these to scam people. Unfortunately these items will never be more than high quality boots. If he wants a dozen copies of them, sounds fine. IMO, He would be better off selling them before they are coasters. The counterfit Sapphires have brought down the cost of the original's and the low quality boots.
You are dead right with chinese people. I work with many of them in the Scientific community and they don't even understand IP. It's not just china either as you mentioned. Most of Asia operates this way.
I also wanted to clarify before i got hammered by the PCE community that I do not know the person who originally made some of the Sapphire boots. I know a person that made Neo Geo boots, PSX boots, and multicarts. He actually now does knock off parts for motorcycles.
"To preserve biological diversity, is an investment in immortality."
Yeah, I'm not anti-Chinese or anything. I just don't get how the stingy/pirating aspect has become so ingrained into Chinese culture. I just had to rant about this because I've been encountering this attitude a lot on message boards. "It's okay for China to steal the designs of Ban Dai's Gundam models and make their own lousy crappy versions because Japan stole the story of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Monkey King from China!" Well, those are pretty much public domain by now, and that doesn't justify stealing intellectual property rights.
This has been going on for quite a while, and even back during the 90s, President Clinton was mentioning about the piracy in Chinese countries. I just don't get it.
EDIT: Perhaps I misunderstood you, but when you said that Breetai should sell these as bootlegs, it seemed to me that you were implying that he should dishonestly deceive people and sell these as bootlegs, and using your acquaintance in Hong Kong as an example. I apologize if I misunderstood you.
I drove by an old derelict "Disneyland" near Beijing. There is also a fully functional "Disneyland" in China (not the real HK one). It is completely counterfit.
greg wrote:Yeah, I'm not anti-Chinese or anything. I just don't get how the stingy/pirating aspect has become so ingrained into Chinese culture.
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Free copying seems to follow pretty readily from that. It's not necessarily a failure in morality, but a difference in morality. It's hard to argue that, for instance, America's "Fuck the poor" attitude is any better. Remember, just because someone has a different moral code than you doesn't mean that they are immoral.
We are prepared to live in the plain and die in the plain!
Hatta wrote:"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Free copying seems to follow pretty readily from that. It's not necessarily a failure in morality, but a difference in morality. It's hard to argue that, for instance, America's "Fuck the poor" attitude is any better. Remember, just because someone has a different moral code than you doesn't mean that they are immoral.
Theft is theft. They turn around and sell the bootlegs to Americans, and we can afford these things. Besides, Hong Kong has certainly not been an impoverished country. It's always been prosperous. Now that China owns the place again, they've kept their commie hands off.
I think it just boils down to the fact that they don't see duplicating and selling video game software as something condemnable, but instead just a quick easy way to make some money.
(P.S.: Hideaki Akaiwa is indeed a true badass hero.)
