An interesting Singaporean law

I encountered this for the first time in my life.

I am used to buying stuff off the net. DVDs, software, apparel, equipment. You name it. And I have been doing this from India as well.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought some DVDs from DeepDiscountDVD.com (a nice site with prices at least 10% off Amazon). Most of them arrived in 2 weeks. I was waiting for the 3 remaining DVDs from the order when a letter arrived in my letterbox.

It was from SingPost and it said that my package had been retained by Singapore Customs and had been passed to the Media Development Authority (MDA). They had enclosed an address on Maxwell Road where I could go and collect the package.

I could not even remember which DVDs were in this package. And I could not imagine why this particular package should be withheld after some 5 had been delevered to me since I moved to Singapore.

So I went to the MDA office this afternoon and waited for the lone attendant to finish with 2 people ahead of me and then attend to me.

What she offered as an explaination staggered me.

She said that Singapore has a rating system for each movie (PG, PG-13, M-18, etc...) and that each movie needs to be rated (irrespective of where it comes from). She told me that I would have to open the package in front of her and then she would have to check if these movies are exempt or they need to be rated.

So I opened it up to see Bowfinger, Erin Brockowich and Liar Liar peep out at me. The idea of rating these movies was a little too funny for me. The conversation that happened after this was anything but funny, though.

The lady checked for each of these DVD and found that they were all PG rated. So I thought, "OK, so they are rated and so not a problem. Maybe I can watch one of them when I get back home".

Boy, was I wrong!

The lady, very politely, told me that while they were all rated, they needed to be "certified". Which is another way of saying that they need to be tagged on with a certificate. Which, for all I know, will be stuck on the shrinkwrap that comes with the DVD which I will promptly throw away once I get the discs. For which I need to pay a dollar eighty on each title.

This is one of the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.

I get my discs on Monday with a sticker ... costing $1.80 each for no reason.

And these are discs that are for personal viewing only.

No wonder a lot of people here buy their movies outside the country. It's things like this that drive up the cost of movies here in Singapore and force genuine buyers like me to shop elsewhere.

I pride myself on my DVD collection, even though my wife gives me a hard time on spending so much money on my DVDs. But I like quality and there is something about an official "Special Edition" disc that makes my heart sing. So I always buy from online stores to keep my costs low.

Looks like I am going to have to cut down on the number of DVDs I buy.