Update: something must be happening with the MPAA

It's not just the shuttered video stores! No pirate DVD vendors in their usual spots on Shanghai's Nanjing Lu or Huaihai Lu this afternoon. None of the usual cadre of fake Rolex-Gucci-Prada hawkers on those same streets. Trade negotiators in town? Crackdown in honor of the National People's Congress in Beijing? Maybe a joint delegation from the MPAA and the Italian Ministry of Commerce? For now it's a mystery, at least to me.