Yar Matey! Sailing the Pirate-infested Seas of Beijing's CD Shops, or: Piracy: A Defence

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Yar Matey! Sailing the Pirate-infested Seas of Beijing's CD Shops, or: Piracy: A Defence

Author: Jon Campbell

Publication in: Foreign Devil in PopMatters

Published on: 7 April 2006

url: http://popmatters.com/music/columns/campbell/060407.shtml

Article about the piracy music market of China and the music market in general.

Abstract

The Beijing music-buying experience is daunting and disorienting, rife with clogged cardboard boxes, cut-outs, and pirated imports. In a highly censored market, the explicitly illegal discs may also be the most necessary.

Let's see... Britney Spears? No thanks. Radiohead? I've got one that looks like that one... but this has two albums' worth of songs. Kenny G, Yngwie Malmstein? No and no. Mercury Rev? Interesting. Richard Clayderman? Not so much. A three-disc retrospective of Arabic chill-out music? Sure, why not.