Inside many restaurants along Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, roving vendors descending on diners offering pirated movies are becoming a common sight. Their wares range from films rated G through XXX, as well as compact discs of Mexican, Colombian and Caribbean musical stars.Tempting Diners in Queens With a Pirated ‘El Cantante’
This free-wheeling — and totally illegal — market in many immigrant neighborhoods combines old-country street-vending with big city, high-tech larceny. The quality ranges from crisp and clear copies made during the movie’s editing process, to fuzzy and flickering versions taped in a theater (and complete with laugh tracks and bobbing silhouettes of people on popcorn runs).
Photo from NY Times
26 comments:
wonder if she has Deep Throat?
Calm down, Dennis.
Come to Bayside.....
there's a sad faced Korean woman working hard
selling discs to meet her "employer's" set quota....
perhaps to work off her costly "entry fee" into the USA
imposed by some "snakehead".
She offers CDs & DVDs to shop owners and customers within.......many featuring "adult" subjects.
This is the dark side of immigration that few get to see.
"This is the dark side of immigration that few get to see."
Are you kidding? This "dark side" is clearly visible in the prostitution ads found every week in the back pages of the Queens Tribune.
Hey DA Brown! When are you going to raid these brothels already?
I'll tell you, though, DVD's and CD's are so expensive these days that I almost sort of applaud the bootleggers who are taking a chunk out of the profits of companies like Sony who are charging way too much for their wares. Th cd's and dvd's cost less than a dollar to produce.
The Tribune does run a lot of hooker ads, in contrast to the Courier and Gazette that run none due to their morally upright slant, I suppose.
I applaud these bootleggers work on helping destroy the racist entity we all know as "Hollywood". How many racist caricature did they show in the movies this Summer alone (i.e. Chuck and Larry)? The sooner Hollywood goes in the RED, the sooner I will again go to the movie theaters. Good job bootleggers....keep up your good work.
I shake my head at a lot of the comments on this site, but the ones here supporting illegal bootlegging, which is in effect theft of intellectual property, are particularly amusing.
DVDs are too expensive? You must be kidding - most are between $15-$25. You can't only look at the physical manufacturing cost when comparing the sale margins. The costs of creating and distributing a movie from start to finish have to be recouped by ticket sales, cable and dvd sales. Those pirating and selling bootleg copies should be prosecuted.
Maybe this is part of the 'vibrant' immigrant community that Vicky and Gary and Helen always talk about.
You know, like on Main St where they use to sell imported Scottish tweeds is now well, just tweeds....
The day laborers leering at the women of Queens is also a nice touch, too, don't you think?
Yes, please send a photographer over to Astoria in the forties some morning. It is a crime the way those guys act, but no one dares say anything because they will be made into victims and we the bad ones. Then they will take our taxes to run a shape up hall for them.
That is in front of a 'club' that is rumored for prostitution and other that has a select clientele that wonders our block at all wee hours of the morning. Call the precinct you say? They don't pick up the damn phone!
Astoria is going to hell in a hand basket and the politicians don't seem to give a damn or have a clue on what to do.
why don't you send in some photos of the astoria brothel to Queens Crap along with some pics of the scantily clad prostitutes, with their boobs and butts hanging out so we might, err, examine the issue.
Calm down, Dennis.
Hey George.....
if you had to bend over and get "porked" for $5
a hit and then turn over $4 dollars to your pimp
to work off what you owe for passage to the USA....
maybe you might show some sympathy for these girls.
P.S.
No more freebies for you !
Dostoyevsky's novel "Crime & Punishment" had a god-fearing prostitute in it named sonia marmeledov. She was forced into the racket by her consumptive mother, because the family urgently needed money after the alcoholic father lost his job.
Now she was a true victim, unlike these ones you mention who could've chosen not to come to the USA after all.
PS The descriptions of dingy Petersburg in the book sound awful similar to what Queens is becoming.
Remember the Happy Hooker?...now we have Trixie, the Crappy Hooker.
Until you find yourself on your back one day
servicing some bad-breathed overweight
Asian businessman (who farts while he's climaxing)....
don't claim to know why or how anyone
got into "the business" or their passage to America.
How do you Gucci-facci"
your financial records to make ends meet ? !!!
trixie is okay. Never meant her any offense.
I wonder if some of the bootlegs were shot by Kramer or Jerry?
I live in Bayside and have never seen Koreans or any Asians selling illegal cd's and dvd's. LOL.
You're not a business owner off Bell Blvd.
They come into my store several times a month!
Maybe....is it.....Judy Limpet's BID
will take care of the problem that you speak of.
But I wouldn't hold my breath !
Yeah......
Flushing may have already gone down the toilet......
but Bayside is currently on the bowl
(Particularly Bell Blv'd south)!
any "massage parlors" on Bell?
Not yet (they're way off to the side streets).
Give it a few years though.
But you'll soon be getting (is it?) an east Indian
"beauty salon" at the old Charmet location ?
Aren't there "nail salons" already "doing business"?
Bayside has definitely lost its cache' !!!
Post a Comment