According to Wang Yu, Public Relations Manager of Zoke, the company was the first audio and video publisher in China to set up an anti-piracy department, in 1999, which has expanded to a team of over 100 people or about one seventh of the company's total staff. The company has set up permanent supervision offices in 15 cities across China, which closely monitor the market and help with local government agencies' crackdown on piracy through reporting the production or sale of counterfeits, raiding warehouses and bringing to court those involved in IPR infringements.

In an interview with Xinhua, Guo Zilong, President of Zoke, said his company promised to respond to every privacy complaint from its wholesale clients. He said his company has the ability to cooperate with governments at different levels to eradicate piracy against Zoke products at stake; if Zoke failed to do so within a certain period, Zoke promises to recall their copies from wholesalers on request. In October alone, Zoke cooperated in 20 raids with the government, which confiscated over 250,000 pirated copies.

Huang Zhenbin, the director of the company's anti-privacy department, told Beijing Review that after the debut of every big-budget movie that sells its copyright for publishing video products to Zoke, the president and vice presidents will meticulously travel to cities with the most rampant piracy to lobby local governments to take action against the targeted piracy so as to protect Zoke's profits and the profits of its partner. Huang said such a reputation helped Zoke win the favor of Fox. "Counterfeit manufacturers just don't dare to copy DVDs of Zoke since they know we could come after them," said Huang.

Fox not the precedent

Yet Fox is not the first top Hollywood studio to promote affordable authentic DVDs in China. Warner Home Video has been trying a similar approach by forming a joint venture with the Shanghai-based Chinese Audio and Video Publishing House last February. According to both Warner and Fox, the winning chips in the Chinese market are world-class quality, reduced pricing, Mandarin dubbing, subtitles and shortened release windows.

Deng Jianguo is the Zoke manager in charge of the cooperation project with Fox. He explained that the cooperation between the two companies is strategic and profound, which will cover all procedures of production, marketing and IPR protection. "If we need enhanced content on DVD for the purpose of sales promotion-say a DVD extra of Garfield in China-Fox probably will listen to our advice and make it for us," said Deng.

However, Deng singled out the shortening of release timeframes and synchronized worldwide DVD publication as the key to winning the battle with pirated DVDs in China. In China, the most rigorous competition for authentic DVDs of foreign movies is the replicated copy of the legitimate DVDs published in other countries a bit earlier, which is of considerably good quality. Deng said the rule in the home entertainment publication industry is that first round publication rakes in profits and second round reaps practically nothing. "We have told our Fox partners that they can only choose between synchronized publication of DVD in China and minimal sales," said Deng. He told Beijing Review that Fox has agreed in principle to publish DVDs in China the same time as other countries, which is about three months after the theatrical debut.

In experimental cases, Warner is exploring a new model of letting the Chinese market take the lead. Warner's joint venture in China last June released the The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants on DVD in China only two days after the theatrical release in the United States. In September, the Superman Returns DVD, competitively priced at 14 yuan and 22 yuan for two versions, was released in China two months earlier than its worldwide bow elsewhere. The success was phenomenal as the authentic DVDs were sold in more than 8,000 retail outlets, many of which had previously stocked only counterfeit movies, according to a company release.

Mike Ellis is Senior Vice President and Regional Director of Asia-Pacific for the American Motion Picture Association (MPA), the lobby group for Hollywood and the global interests of the U.S. movie industry. He told Beijing Review that the prices of legitimate home video products are extremely competitive in China and Chinese people can afford it. "When I see Chinese people paying $3 for a Starbucks cappuccino, I know we can convince them that legitimate versions of movies are worth paying for," said Ellis.

Difficult mission

Meanwhile, a nationwide campaign of intensive crackdown on piracy, which was unprecedented in terms of its duration and number of government departments involved, started July 15 and lasted 100 days. Jointly launched by 10 ministries and national departments, the campaign revoked 368 business licenses for audiovisual products. Nearly 13 million pirated CDs, DVDs and computer software items confiscated in the first half of the 100-day campaign were destroyed in different cities on September 16.

Meeting with his American counterpart, Chinese Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai said the Chinese Government regards IPR protection as a national strategy. "We will show no mercy in the fight against IPR infringement," said Bo.