Competing Against Studios on Crack
When I’ve asked Chinese and Indian counterparts about their software licensing, I’ve been quickly assured that it’s all above board because they only use “open source” versions of Maya, Nuke, Fusion, Softimage, Photoshop, whatever downloaded from the internet for free.
Unfortunately the Chinese and Indian definition of “open source” is pretty much the same as the American definition of “software piracy”. The use of “Crack” across Asia is epidemic.
The “commodity” FX production at bargain basement prices in outsourcing hot-spots around the globe is often done on cracked software. If the Asian studios paid the same prices for the software they’re using as US studios they would not be able to compete at the level and prices we’re seeing. Many of the studios in China and India would not have opened in the first place since few of them had the capital required to build any sort of infrastructure.
Of course, piracy isn’t limited to Asia. I’m sure there is a percentage of American and European companies engaged in similar practices but US companies operate under the threat of audits from the MPAA and BSA. No such threat exists in Asia to enforce proper software licensing. It appears as if the studios and people who manage out-source sub-contracts are only too happy to turn a blind eye to the problem, impacting the ability of studios with legitimate business practices to compete.
It might level the playing field if there was some pressure from existing unions and trade groups to get an agreement from film production studios and out-source managers to audit their sub-contractors for pirated software. There is simply no motivation for Chinese or Indian studios to run legitimate software licenses and many of them would go out of business overnight if forced to comply.
I’d like to see this issue addressed by VES 2.0
Good point. I’ll bring it up to the VES.
Maybe that’s why they can charge so little also
Based upon the research you’ve done for this article, what kind of salaries are the artists making at the facilities you reference? In mature markets, as anyone who has been in management knows, artist salaries are a much larger part of the bottom line than software costs. And that’s a good thing in my opinion — pay the craftsman artist for their talent and reward with good working conditions. I think it would be great for VES to help improve the working conditions and salaries for artists in the emerging markets…that seems as though it would have way more impact in leveling the playing field.
I prefer to use the term “emerging” and “mature” because I feel it’s a misnomer to use the term “Asia”. Markets such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and others shouldn’t be lumped with the emerging post communities.
I have only spoken with people at Indian and Chinese animation/fx houses. I don’t have any well researched numbers but I seem to recall that one talented artist at a small studio in China said he was making around $1200/month and working about 60 hours a week. I’ve heard that artist salaries peak out around $2000/month in China.
[...] wrinkle for the Indian and Chinese VFX subcontractors that has been pointed out at the FXDag blog. Many of them are on crack: When I’ve asked Chinese and Indian counterparts about their software licensing, I’ve been [...]