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Warner Home Video has decided that the only way to deal with the problem of DVD piracy is to weaken its creators.

Warner has begun its drive by setting up trial sales in China of a movie DVD priced at just Rmb12 ($1.50). This step is sure to thwart consumers placed in the developed sectors of Europe and US, who usually pay $20-$30 for a recently released film on DVD.

The test sales of the “simple pack” edition of the Oscar-winning epic “The Aviator” marks one of the boldest efforts yet by an international film company – WHV’s Chinese joint venture, CAV Warner.

CAV Warner has packaged “The Aviator” in a cardboard folder rather than the standard DVD plastic box, went on sale earlier this month in selected Chinese cities, said Christine Hu, CAV Warner public relations manager.

Hollywood studios have struggled to establish significant businesses in China because of tight government controls on the number of foreign films approved for release and rampant piracy in the DVD market.

“This is a first step to see if the consumer can accept this product at this price,” Hu continued, adding that it was too early to judge the results of the experiment.

China’s weak enforcement of intellectual property laws and state censorship, which complicates DVD imports has given an upper hand and benefited the pirate producers since very long.

However, local distributors say that the best way to fight the pirates would be for international companies to cut both the delay lag between the release of their films at the cinema and on DVD and the gulf in prices between legitimate products and pirated discs.

Pirate DVDs can easily be bought for prices starting at about Rmb6.

WHV has established itself as perhaps the most ground-breaking of the foreign film companies since launching its joint venture with China Audio and Video Publishing House, a state company controlled by the Ministry of Culture, in February 2005.

Shanghai-based CAV Warner already sells recent-release films on DVD in a number of different packages.

“Silver releases” cost about Rmb22 and are often issued in all-Chinese versions that can go on sale in China a month before their US DVD release.
CAV Warner later issues “gold releases” at about Rmb35 that include a number of extras.

Low prices are fundamental for a mass market used to cut-price pirate discs, but Ms Hu said there had been surprising demand for pricey box sets.