Finally the matter has come before the consumer. Visitors to HMV or KPS cannot fail to have noticed the signs - the ones that say that cheap magazines are out of stock, CD prices are going up, or movie titles will take longer to arrive.
For more than 10 years, this matter - with its turn-off words 'parallel imports' - has been a bone of contention in the Hong Kong cultural arena but only now is the person in the street having to come to terms with the issue.
Parallel importation of copyright articles - the 'grey' market, or, to translate from Chinese, 'water products' - is not the same as selling counterfeit goods.
For each magazine, book, piece of computer software, video, laserdisc and compact disc sold in Hong Kong, a local agent holds the licence from the copyright owner to import it. But book and music shops often prefer to deal with legitimate overseas distributors who can supply the goods more quickly and cheaply than the local agent. This means the customer has been able to see a film or read a book earlier and more cheaply than by using the local agent.
But no longer: parallel importation of any product, incorporating what are known as intellectual property rights, within 18 months of its release is now a civil and criminal offence under the Copyright Ordinance. Even when products are more than 18 months old, they can be bought from overseas only under very restricted conditions.
Although some of these rules were in place before, now they are easily actionable and violators of the ordinance could be jailed for a maximum of four years.
So magazines previously brought in from overseas have disappeared from the shelves, while shops negotiate with the local agent. HMV estimates that, since the new bill gained Legco's approval on June 24, sales of magazines and T-shirts are down 30 per cent and CD singles 20 per cent. CD and video stock at both KPS and HMV are not being replaced after sale pending a resolution of the issue.