zalthor: You've highlighted a very important point here. One which a lot of people overlook and that is the unavailability of the content in most south-east-asian countries. Piracy, I believe, is the norm there and if it were not for piracy most of the countries over there would be severely lacking in terms of knowledge and awareness of a specific domain (for e.g: cultural awareness in terms of movies and music piracy).
Having said that I think it is also quite difficult for the "greedy" companies to sell in these countries at the price points that would have suitable returns. This is because of the fact that the masses in these countries simply cannot afford to pay that much. This does not necessarily mean they should suffer for it.
So, pirates are actually heroes in these regions no matter what anybody says because a genuine audience/market for them exists in poor/sanctioned countries around the world. SOPA or whatever other concoction they have in the rabbit hat, would do very little to affect the usual business of the day.
No just in Asian countries. In Germany we have to hope something is successful enough to be shown on TV and then with a horrible German translation. The only way to watch this in original would be waiting 3 Years for a DVD version.
I envy you Americans for Netflix, we have nothing like that here.
I do not know Netflix but have you heard of Videoload? Havn't used it either but my guess is that there are no current movies out soon after their cinematic release on that platform, as well. ITunes Germany had some TV shows one day after their broadcast in the US. I don't know if that is still happening.
There are some strict rules around in Germany that defined at what time a movie may be released on DVD after it has hit cinemas. I think it is 6 months. Renting the movie might in some occasions be possible a couple of weeks earlier. Though, that has never mattered to me. Waiting on the DVD release or for it's TV premiere are pretty much the same for me. Although, I guess there is also a minimum period for DVD sales before it is shown on TV.
Having said that I think it is also quite difficult for the "greedy" companies to sell in these countries at the price points that would have suitable returns. This is because of the fact that the masses in these countries simply cannot afford to pay that much. This does not necessarily mean they should suffer for it.
So, pirates are actually heroes in these regions no matter what anybody says because a genuine audience/market for them exists in poor/sanctioned countries around the world. SOPA or whatever other concoction they have in the rabbit hat, would do very little to affect the usual business of the day.