All film production companies in Malaysia sell the DVD rights of their feature films to distributors in order to get some revenue from them. But even before the films are taken out of the cinema circuit, pirated DVD discs of the films are already available at the 'pasar malam'.

There is nothing strange about this since pirates of Malay films can do such things. But the stranger thing is that the quality of the pirated DVD film is so good that they are like the original copies.

The question I wish to ask everybody is this: How come the distributors of the original DVDs - who paid anything from RM200,000 to RM350,000 per film - never complained to the authorities about this?

The answer is so obvious - that the pirates of the discs might also the distributors themselves.

If this is the case, then film producers ought to get angry for this breach of trust considering that if pirated discs are sold they stand to lose earning on royalties. A few years ago, Malay films could easily get RM400,000 to RM500,000 from DVD or VCD rights.