The Decline & Fall of Randolph Hobson Guthrie III

Wired is carrying the story of the failed life -- so far anyway -- of Randy Guthrie. Guthrie was born into a privileged life, and is by all indications, extremely smart, and incredibly stupid. He was arrested in China for DVD piracy and is now serving a sentence in Chinese prison -- once he's out, he will be deported to the US, where he will have to suffer more of the same. As the article points out, Guthrie is being used as an example, and in many ways a bad one. He was a two-bit player in the DVD piracy game -- and his arrest will not even lead to a dip in the piracy of DVDs. Guthrie was buying DVDs from a Chinese licensed store in Shanghai, and shipping them to customers who ordered online from him. He was stupid enough to think that no one cared enough to do anything about it. And truth be told, only the US cares. The Chinese don't. He was arrested by the Chinese authorities who wanted to throw their American counterparts a little bone. The chose Guthrie because he was an American, and the irony of it was just too nice to pass up. The Chinese however, never went after the middle men that supplied the stores that supplied Guthrie. They didn't go after the manufacturers of the pirated discs. They didn't even wonder where the digital files to make the DVDs were coming from -- especially since some movies were still in theatres, and hadn't been released for DVD publishing. Neither, it appears are the Americans too concerned. The MPAA (like the RIAA) is, fixated on the consumers.