September 21, 2005

List of dvd's banned in singapore

Rich Fuester said:

I work at amazon.com which gets returns for many reasons. One being the Media Development Authority of Singapore has opened the box and found a DVD it doesn't want in the country. Amazon has a list of 150 DVD's known to be returned from conservative countries. Then there is another list of approximately the same size of additional titles known to be refused from Singapore. That list has not been updated in many years. However I have the fun job of processing recent returns that need extra research and a good percentage are from Singapore. Since it is a mild annoyance for me and probably a big annoyance for people in Singapore I've constructed a site that will continually grow as new titles are refused by the media development authority of singapore.

Recommended by chrisloup: "lets you see what's in the sordid minds of the film censorship board, where even men in black is banned."

Link

Submitted by chrisloup on September 21//11:09am and published by shianux, popagandhi :: 17782 reads | trackback (2)
Comments 27

Gosh. You must be kidding me. I see so many mainstream movies that are banned. Why are they doing that?

I seem to have seen some of the DVDs (Region 1) mentioned in that list in the shops. Perhaps, it was returned for some other reason other than censorship? Strange.

This site looks more like a scam to get people to buy stuff from amazon. The site even has an Amazon associate id.

basically I think anything that isn't cut isn't allowed in singapore..

and the amazon associate thing, you can ignore it .. he's doing it as a side line as well

As quoted from the MDA website:

Is accessing pornography on the Internet illegal?
The MDA does not monitor or track users' access to any sites on the Internet and does not interfere with what individuals access in the privacy of their homes. We are primarily concerned with the purveyors and distributors of pornography. Unless you engage in such activities, the mere act of visiting such sites is not an offence.

Is this good or bad? Me, personally, I think you know the answer.

I wonder why MDA went to control media, press, films at such a tight scale, while leaving the "BIGGEST" threat: the internet, open.

I am not supporting the idea of the MDA regulating the usage of the Internet, but the fact that Singapore was ranked top 5 in the world based on pornography websites visited and transfered over local ISP servers showed something, there must be a problem with all these overly tight regulations in Singapore.

Sometimes your people lose patience and discipline when you control and pin them down too hard, you know?

Posted by MDA* on 21 September, 2005 - 5:00pm

I imagine the reason the MDA leaves the internet "open" is because it can't feasibly control it --- hundreds of new sites of "objectionable" sites pop up everyday. On the other hand, films, books and news publications are in concrete form and easily controlled.

As for Singapore being among the top 5 countries visiting porn websites --- how come this kind of "top" news not reported in local media, hmmmm? :)

PS: I can't get to the "banned in Singapore" website at the moment. Is it gone? Or maybe it's just my access that's being weird...

i don't think the list is real. i have several DVD titles listed which I'd bought from amazon.

Posted by roamer* on 21 September, 2005 - 5:05pm

the post office people don't check every parcel. so you're just lucky yours got through.. but its technically contraband then..

hee. i must be really lucky. i order about 5 dvds every month. :)

Trackback from You Got Me Blogging:

I am not a person who is very much bothered by the whole censorship hoo-haa in Singapore ...But that doesn't stop me from being deeply intrigued by this website - a listing of all returned Amazon products from Singapore....

aint there someting wrong with the list?
didnt they show American Pie 1 n 2 in sg?

and what the hell is wrong with Saint Jack? I know its banned, just becos they kinda show sg in a diff. light?

Posted by Anonymous Coward* on 21 September, 2005 - 5:56pm

'Saint Jack' was showed uncut at a film festival a few years back. The screening was widely publicised.

'Saint Jack' protrays a 1970s Singapore with prostitution and so forth. It is funny how a certain location in Orchard Road remains pretty much unchanged. Pretty interesting really.

Those mainstream dvds that were on the list are banned because they are uncut. You can get the exact same dvd from local shops only because they are region 3 and have been censored by the MDA already.

Amazon.com sells region 1 dvds where most of the time, there is little or no censorship on the dvds at all.

And what is so objectionable about Monty Python's Flying Circus (season 1 shown on artscentral a few years back!), Princess Mononoke (shown on commercial cinema here), Bubblegum Crisis, or Samurai X (shown on kidscentral's Animax, practically the same as the watered-down de-goryfied US version)?

Hey I wonder did anyone have region 1 and region 3 DVD players at home, just for this purpose?

Posted by Gee* on 21 September, 2005 - 8:43pm

almost all dvd players in singapore are region free..and if your pc dvd drive is region locked, there is software "region free" that can ignore the lock...

region locking is NOT copyright. its just market segmentation, just beware of dmca like laws making their way here (or are they already here)

Posted by Anonymous Coward* on 22 September, 2005 - 12:02am

oh? my dvd player is fine, but the dvd drive in my laptop is region-locked... what is the software to unlock this?

Men in Black??? What the.....

Posted by ATT* on 21 September, 2005 - 9:20pm

Some of these titles are clearly for sale in Singapore and therefore not banned. eg "Princess Mononoke", "Blade Runner" and many many others. Chrisloup, pls note.

What might have happened is that they often return the entire package "as-is" even if just one title is banned. Happened to me before...grrrr

Posted by Anonymous Coward* on 22 September, 2005 - 4:27am

I think this list was probably accurate a few years ago, but nowadays a lot more stuff gets through. In the past, if a DVD required any cuts at all, it wasn't allowed, but that isn't the case anymore.

Posted by Anonymous Coward* on 22 September, 2005 - 10:13am

The list is not accurate. Probably not updated since they allowed for NC-16 and M18 materials.

Posted by Rayten* on 22 September, 2005 - 10:54am

I doubt if the list were even accurate back then as many of the cartoons (region 1) DVDs were easily available here. Ditto for some movie titles.

Trackback from offpoint:

.... and found it very amusing, especially the most recently rejected titles.

Someone is obviously trying to learn about SEX! haha.

...

This list is nonsense. The relevant media acts state that any DVDs imported into Singapore _must_ be approved by the Film Censorship Board (that green sticker). The list is just a reflection of what our authorities have managed to find and reject for not having the sticker.

Is the list 100% accurate? I actually have to state I'm not sure.

The sources used for my list:

Amazon's internal Conservative Countries refused item list(most questionable of my sources)
MIB is on this list.
Amazon's appended list for Singapore (The only country having one)
The MDA website (Film Classification Database searching English & Ban)
http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.www/resources_result.aspx?search=&actor=&producer=&rating=&language=EN&decision=BAN
The actual returns I process periodicly with the MDA logo proudly stamped on them.
imdb.com (40+ movies are listed as banned)

Nothing that leaves amazon.com's facilities have a little green sticker. I beleive they are applied by the MDA just like little stickers are applied to cigarrettes in the states.

As for DVD's processed recently here is the list from Nov. 14th.

Title: The Image
Author:
Price: [list] $24.95, [amazon]
Binding: dvd
ISBN: B000063K1Q

Title: Basic Instinct
Author:
Price: [list] $9.98, [amazon]
Binding: dvd
ISBN: B0000JCFPE

Title: The Big Easy
Author:
Price: [list] $9.98, [amazon]
Binding: dvd
ISBN: 6305262268

Title: The Last Seduction
Author:
Price: [list] , [amazon]
Binding: dvd
ISBN: B00006L91I

Title: Original Sin (Unrated Version)
Author:
Price: [list] , [amazon]
Binding: dvd
ISBN: B00005V4XV

Title: In the Cut (Unrated and Uncut Director's Edition)
Author:
Price: [list] , [amazon]
Binding: dvd
ISBN: B0000ZMGWK

Title: Body of Evidence
Author:
Price: [list] $14.95, [amazon]
Binding: dvd
ISBN: B00006L92K

Title: The L Word - The Complete Second Season
Author:
Price: [list] , [amazon]
Binding: dvd
ISBN: B0009QTRVI

Title: Nip/Tuck - The Complete Second Season
Author:
Price: [list] , [amazon]
Binding: dvd
ISBN: B0009IW88K

Title: Nip/Tuck - The Complete First Season
Author:
Price: [list] $59.98, [amazon]
Binding: dvd
ISBN: B0001O3YLM

question... if the DVD is to be returned back to Amazon, can I ask for my money back ?

Posted by unsure* on 3 February, 2006 - 10:43am

stop this think its only for personal viewership ... let those dvds in

Posted by arc* on 29 May, 2006 - 4:05pm