China Video Piracy Challenged

Last week the issue of video piracy in China was news in the motion picture industry trade papers. Variety reported that Sanford Litvack, Walt Disney Companyís chief of corporate operations took to task an expert witness for Jeffrey Katzenberg for his prediction of a dramatic decrease in video piracy in China over the next five years. The testimony was given in the Katzenberg lawsuit against Disney.Katzenbergís expert piracy witness, Edward Tse, predicted that video sales in China would be responsible for approximately $3 billion of the $17 billion his firm has calculated as the total value of Katzenbergís pool of titles produced during his tenure with Disney. Katzenberg is suing to collect from Disney a bonus that he is owed, that amounts to 2 percent of the profits on these titles.Litvack showed that since 1994, the Chinese government has repeatedly announced initiatives to stamp out piracy, yet there has been no decline in the piracy rate. A key assumption in Tseís prediction of future legal video sales is that China will improve its abysmal record on piracy, educing illegal copies to 10 percent of all sales by 2002 from 90 percent in 1998.