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By Marty, August 23, 2010 11:36 am

At some point in the past year or two, the video stores in this land have all disappeared. There have never been any big chains like Blockbuster of Hollywood Video, they were just Mom-and_pop stores, usually with a book for rent section as well. There were two stores in our neighborhood. Now there are none. And I haven’t seen another one around town in ages.

It’s not because Koreans don’t watch movies. They watch plenty. It’s because there’s no money in renting movies when they can be downloaded for cheap or for free in less time than it takes to get in your car and drive to a video store.  Koreans have no compunction about pirating movies. In fact, many of the major studios choose to release at movies in Korean theaters at the same time or even slightly before they are released in America simply because they know they will be pirated and they’ll lose money. Better to get their money early at the theaters before they show up on the internet.

Downloading is big business here in Korea. Although movies and TV shows can be downloaded for free anywhere, because Koreans typically need subtitles to view Hollywood movies an entire cottage industry has arisen. A number of sites are set up whereby Koreans download a movie from the internet (usually one in which someone else in Italy, Spain, Russia or Greece has filmed the movie with a camcorder in the theater, although higher-quality DVD copies are also available) and adds Korean subtitles to it. This “set” is then sold on a website for the average Kim of Cho to download and watch either on a computer or burned to a DVD and to watch on the home big screen.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Legitimate corporations have gotten in on the deal. One such company, QOOK, has taken it to a whole new level. QOOK provides digital cable and Internet access to their customers, much like a Time Warner or Comcast. But they, too, offer first-run movies, sometimes while they’re still in the theater, for a fee. Without the hassle of downloading yourself or burning a DVD, they’ll pipe the movies they’ve pirated into your home. For a few bucks, they’ll take a movie they’ve gotten for free off the internet pirate sites like The Pirate Bay and repackaged it for video-on-demand to their customers. Slick, huh?

Now I won’t lie and say I’ve never downloaded a pirated movie or a song. I have.   But I’ve never taken what I downloaded and tried to turn it into a business model, wiping out scads of Mom-and-Pop video stores in the process and redirecting millions of dollars from studios and into my own coffers. There’s a diffference here, and while subtle, seems like the kind of thing movie studios and record labels in America should focus on rather than suing the individuals who post them.

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By Marty, May 20, 2010 12:58 pm

I had planned to be doing a lot of writing over the past few weeks. I did get some writing in on my newest novel, but that’s taken a back seat. I got a few dozen pages written before being sidelined by other things going on here. What things you might ask? A plethora. All good.

First, we (my Ulsanonline.com partner, Fin, and I) have been approached by a multi-faceted group in Seoul. They had seen our site and the great stuff we’d produced for the foreigners in Ulsan.  The owner, a Korean-born, Brazil- and US-raised guy named Fabio sees a potential for us in a vastly underserved portion of Korea – the Gyeongsangnam-do province to the south and west of Ulsan. We’ll do a website, complete with lifestyle, travel and how-to information for the area. But we won’t stop at just a website. Fabio and his team are fired up about creating a magazine. A magazine that caters to both foreigners and english-speaking Koreans, complete with fabulous photos and glossy goodness.  I admit, I wasn’t keen on the idea as print seems to be going the way of the buggy whip, but they’ve got me wrapped into it. I’ll be co-editor of the magazine and Chief geek on the website.  The catch is that the local city and provincial governments all have foreign populations – teachers like me, engineers, factory workers – and they all have a budget to provide support in one form or another.

I started work as editor of the Korea Sun back in the summer of 2008. That was another glossy lifestyle magazine, but it went under before any of my writing or editing was published – costs were just too high to produce and revenue from Korean businesses for ads were just too low.  I’m somewhat wary of this being the same, printing and ads sales will be Fabio’s role and his other companies are already established. We might have a shot here. We’ll see. Faboi’s team includes several English-speaking foreigners, all of whom are counting on this to free them from teaching to focus on this full time.  I’m keeping my teaching job for now – until the $$ roll in regularly.

Here in Ulsan, with spring firmly ensconced and summer nearing, the outdoor season is upon us. We’re planning a “scooter rally” – a race/scavenger hunt to visit several places around the city and take creative pictures. I’ve been involved in the planning of this event as well.

With both the new magazine/website and scooter rally, I’ve been doing lots of programming. I’m chief geek here in Ulsan and forced myself to learn some new tricks.  Although I doubt most reading will understand what it is, Flash is a tool that is very prevalent on websites where animation, flashy, eye-catching graphics are required. You may not know what it is, but I guarantee you’ve visited and seen a website with flash.  It would be a shame if you didn’t see mine.

So here’s the programming/artwork I’ve been doing lately. These are likely transient and won’t stay up in these places forever, but for now these links work. I may, at a later date, pull them into a portfolio of sorts should I wish to build a resume for becoming a geek back in the USA someday. The website for the new magazine is still on ulsanonline.com – we’ll eventually buy a site expressly for that, but we can dovetail it off there for now. Check out the fancy lead-in here.  That cool map thingy – all Flash.  Then I made a banner for the scooter rally. It sits on the front page for now, but will certainly be gone after the rally. The cute little scooters drive across the page with links to the race site – all Flash programming. For the race site and registration, I made another fancy-pants banner on this page. The original “inferno” as they’ve called it started several years ago. They’ve skipped a few years, but its back with some flashy Flash.

Anywho, that’s why I haven’t written too much on here lately. I’ve been a busy boy.  More news later as it happens.

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By Marty, March 20, 2010 1:52 am

Everyone once in a while, I see someone change their password on this site. No big deal, but not required if you have a facebook account.  In fact, if you want to comment or share my blog, having facebook makes it simple. I created a simple how-to and placed on the top menu bar. Read this to see how easy it is to use your facebook account to communicate here.