Media piracy in emerging economies

The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) released a new report today focused on media piracy in emerging economies including Brazil.

Titled ‘Media piracy in emerging economies’ the report examines the problem media distributors face with copied music, films, and computer software. It  describes how the general public has come to see piracy as commonplace, even acceptable, yet industry groups have continued calling for consumer education and a change in attitude without any success.

The study claims that when local incomes are compared to the cost of a music CD, DVD, or basic software product such as Microsoft Office, the cost of such products in countries such as Brazil, South Africa, or Russia is five to ten times the cost of the same product in the US or Europe.

The SSRC don’t offer any new solutions, but they are blunt in their assessment of the current approach to copyright theft – enforcement just doesn’t work. The study authors claim that many years of copyright enforcement has done nothing to prevent the copying of media products in emerging economies – and as mentioned, consumers now accept pirated products as normal.

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IT Decisions Says

The SSRC is doing the world a favor by formalising what we all know, that copyright theft is now commonplace and particularly in emerging economies. But it would be an injustice to claim that those in Europe and the USA are happy to pay full price for media products – how many young people now pay for music or movies when they can all be downloaded for free?

The streets of Brazil are full of DVD vendors selling movies that sometimes have not even been released yet at the cinema. In large cities such as Sao Paulo, people selling such goods right in front of cinemas is a common sight.

In India, it is common to be stopped at traffic lights by a vendor tapping on your car window with a pile of books – all copied from the original. It is said that authors know they have really made it in India when they see the street vendors copying their books.

Digital Rights Management as we know it has failed and the market has spoken. If an official product can be offered with some extra value in addition to a pirated version then the public may buy it. But while official DVD and CDs remain priced at around eight times the – exactly similar – pirate versions, what can the media industry expect?

What is your opinion?

Photo by Muhammed Ahmed Khan licensed under Creative Commons