Full Moon Cafe now offers a Boom Boom Room service. Started by a bloke called Simon in Phnom Penh and spread to other parts of Cambodia, is a clever way of capitalising on the lack of copyright laws and enforcement. The model is this: over dinner, you choose from a bound catalog of thousands of albums, drop off your ipod and some cheap-labour local guy loads the mp3s up for you in the back room for 75 US cents per album. You pay extra for burning onto cds or uploading onto portable mp3 players.

Now there is sharing music, but profiting takes it up a notch to a level that I’m not entirely comfortable with (believe it or not!). There are a few of recommendations in the catalog, but you cannot actually pre-purchase listen to the music - so I am not sure the good-for-the-artist argument applies.  Nevertheless, it doesnt stop me from investigating further...

As I peruse the catalog, I am impressed that it offers all the standard-release albums of my favourite singer, Bic Runga. Although the very limited classical section is unsurprising, I would have expected the world music section to be a bit thicker.

I start asking about what bit rate the music is encode at, and before I can ask the video resolution (for $5 TV episodes and $3.5 movies) the Lao guy, let’s call him Noi, invites me upstairs to work it out myself as he doesn’t have a clue. It’s just a PC, albeit a spanking new brand name one, with the external hard drive of media provided by Simon. The Lao guy seems generally interested in learning about the trade off between bit-rates/quality and file size. (BTW, a couple of TV episodes I sampled looked to be low-resolution format for video ipod only)

I also asked if I could copy straight to my portable external hard-disk as my thumb drive is full. Another blank look. I realise that perhaps my calling in Laos is capacity building this waiter. I am excited because he is actually much keener to learn that most people in my office that I am supposed to be training.

And it doesn’t end there. The next day I go back with my friend (her thumb drive was full and the album not copied completely) but before I can explain he recognises me and asks if I know how to make the video on the ipod he is holding work! Well I have a look and find the output is set to an external screen and he is so relieved he hasn’t stuffed up the customer’s ipod that he offers me a couple of free albums. Sweet! He asked how much it cost me to buy a copy like this overseas. He was really surprised when I said it was illegal in most other parts of the world! 

The photo of the orchid was taken on our recent expedition to the orchid house at the National University of Laos (NUL) Faculty of Science, in Don Doc Village. If you would like to visit, call the Faculty first to arrange an appointment if you don’t have any other contacts that can get you in.