Did anyone say anything to upset the government in Beijing? I'm in China having to get around the net nanny with anonymouse.org.... most annoying!

Maybe they censor ANY discussion group?

Regards,
Adelaide

People was saying that in Asia, nobody was buying pictures, they was stealing them or a thing like that. But anything to censure the site.

That was me. I met the son of an editor in Manila and he told me his dad uses shots from Getty and Alamy, and that he knew Photoshop very well. He explained me that he used Photoshop (you can get the CS3 extended version here in the Phils on any "market" for 1$ - on the same DVD are Vista Coorporate and multiple games, all cracked). When I asked why he used Photoshop for, he told me to clone out the watermarks.

The China block is a hoax. There are sites around that "test" you via a Chinese proxy. I run a site for EU expats in East-Asia, with political content. It showed blocked by the proxy, but in Bejing, it showed up very well. The MSG works fine in China.

But why they do this? Don't have money - Hacking culture - Never pay for artwork culture? It's amazing how somebody can proudly say that!

I don't know about photos, but pirate software in Brazil is very common - you can find them being sold on the streets in front of everyone, until inspectors appear (not too often and not effective, it seems, as sellers are on the same spots everyday).  Same for DVDs.

Reason?  To some people it is lack of money indeed (especially in the case of DVDs).  DVD players are reasonably cheap, so many poor people can afford it, but buying DVDs is expensive, and rental can be out of their range too (especially if youhave kids and they want to watch the same DVD over and over).  To many people is the lack of consequence and/or the pleasure of not paying the real price.  Many of my workmates - well paid workers with a good life standard - buy pirate DVDs and software, or download them from many sharing sites.

There is a recent case here of a movie that was available as a pirate DVD before it was released in the cinemas (they even changed something in the final cut to attract people who had already seen the pirate DVD, but I was told differences are irrelevant).  The movie was a very succesfull in the cinemas anyway, which is a good thing.

Personally I don't see the point in buying DVDs - pirate or not - except for some very special ones.  I rent one once in a while, but I don't see the fascination of having shelves and shelves of DVDs - I wonder how often people watch them.  In the case of software, prices can be really outrageous.  It became better with the Internet, as we were able to buy them directly and not through a local representative with all the legal costs that I don't understand. I suppose it's illegal for our government because we don't pay import taxes unless it's something through mail/carrier.   

Regards,
Adelaide

In the case of software, prices can be really outrageous.

MS XP Home edition is 4000php or 100$ in the Philippines. You have to order it since it's never in stock. 4000php is the monthly income of a rural lower middle class family or 200kg of rice. The DVD with XP Pro (and loads of cracked games) at the market is 60php or 1.5$ and readily available.

East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.