Respect Authority

Want to watch the latest Harry Potter movie at home like, two whole weeks before it comes out on DVD? Go to Korea.

Kim watches his favorite movies in the buff.

Warner Bros. said Wednesday it plans to become the first Hollywood Studio to make movies available through video-on-demand two weeks before their DVD release in Korea. The goal is to take “full advantage of Korea’s extraordinary digital infrastructure,” and obviously for Warner, to make dolla’ dolla’ bills. (Or I guess in Korea, dolla’ dolla’ won).

Indeed, Korea is pretty super-duper tech savvy. Approximately 94% of households there have broadband connections, and more than 47% of people surveyed say they’ve downloaded a movie from the Internet at least once (no word on the porn-to-non-porn ratio, sadly). They also own nuclear weapons, and have so totally made technology their bitch that the country plans to fund a tech center in South Africa, which is a pointless gesture if I ever saw one.

Here’s my question: If Koreans love movies so much, why do they keep trying to sell theirs to me at the laundromat?