I'm the guy who wrote the Third World Pirate article. I think that the real issue with piracy is that the Internet has made available for millions what in the past was only available for a few. Who hasn't copied music tapes? But from the point of view of the music industry, you could only copy a couple of them to a couple of your friends who wanted or liked that particular band. Now you can upload the songs for millions to download them. Same for games, same for movies, same for books.
Here in Argentina 50% of record sales are pirated copies. You can buy them (along with movies and games) in open fairs, in the street (I've seen cops buying them too by the way), in common shops; piracy is common practice. I know this is, legally, stealing (anyway most people don't stop to ponderate on this matters I guess), but I also know -like it was mentioned in some comments above- that Sony, EA, New Line, you name it, are not expecting revenues from the Latin American markets. Not above a certain marging at least.
This might apply only to third world countries, but in mi case, if I want to listen/read/play/watch something and I can't afford to pay for it "legally", then I'll buy it illegally (for books, there's a place here, in a park, where you can buy new books for a third of their actual market place). It may sound immoral, but life is short and if corporations don't realize that nobody is willing to dish out a substancial amount of their salary on something like a CD because they want to earn a hundred million dollars instead of 90... then bad luck for them.
Here in Argentina 50% of record sales are pirated copies. You can buy them (along with movies and games) in open fairs, in the street (I've seen cops buying them too by the way), in common shops; piracy is common practice. I know this is, legally, stealing (anyway most people don't stop to ponderate on this matters I guess), but I also know -like it was mentioned in some comments above- that Sony, EA, New Line, you name it, are not expecting revenues from the Latin American markets. Not above a certain marging at least.
This might apply only to third world countries, but in mi case, if I want to listen/read/play/watch something and I can't afford to pay for it "legally", then I'll buy it illegally (for books, there's a place here, in a park, where you can buy new books for a third of their actual market place). It may sound immoral, but life is short and if corporations don't realize that nobody is willing to dish out a substancial amount of their salary on something like a CD because they want to earn a hundred million dollars instead of 90... then bad luck for them.