[Rumori] more on street piracy (and w/respect to south america)

[Brian Flemming]

Reminded me of this recent column by Lessig...

A Taste of Our Own Poison
By Lawrence Lessig

When America was poor, its citizens "stole." We took the intellectual 
property of Dickens and other foreign artists without paying for it. We 
didn't call it stealing, but they did. We called it a sensible way for 
a developing nation to develop. Eventually, we saw it was better to 
protect their rights as well as ours - better because we had rights to 
protect elsewhere, too. But we only imposed this burden on ourselves 
when it made sense to do so. Until 1891, we were a pirate nation.

Things have changed. Now that we're the world's leading exporter of 
intellectual property, we're also the most self-righteous about the 
importance of protecting it globally. Indeed, we can be vicious in our 
self-righteousness - threatening trade wars with developing nations for 
the crime of being just like us. Recently, through a series of trade 
agreements, we have demanded stricter protection for intellectual 
property internationally than US law would allow domestically. (Fair 
use, for example, is mandated by our constitution but invisible in 
these agreements.)

This push to protect intellectual property is defended as just one 
aspect of free trade - the aspect that benefits Hollywood. Since Adam 
Smith penned The Wealth of Nations, we've understood that borders are 
best when opened and when property from one country is respected in 
another. Free trade so enabled is the promised elixir for the woes of 
developing nations. Open your borders, protect property rights, and 
prosperity, the Smithies say, will quickly follow.

MORE
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/view.html?pg=5


On Friday, January 23, 2004, at 05:47 AM, Steev Hise wrote:

> hey all,
>
> hola, from Buenos Aires.
>
> i wish i had more time to keep up with email lists like rumori. this
> is the first time i´ve really had time to even skim the archive in 2
> months. very good to see the vibrant traffic, wow.
>
> i noticed the thread about the RIAA street vendor crackdowns and i´d
> like to make a comment.
>
> I´ve seen stats for years, and comments by analysts, that the real
> music  piracy problem is not the internet but bootleggers on the
> streets, especially in the 3rd world. same with movies.
> now that i´ve been in south america i can personally attest that its
> huge.  especially in brazil, and bolivia.  in street markets i saw
> blocks and blocks of nothing but guys selling CD-Rs, often with
> giant
> soundsystems blasting examples of their wares. its quite a sonic
> experience, getting that mix as you walk down the street. in sao
> paulo especially.  sometimes there are mp3 compilation discs for
> sale
> too (200 rock songs! 200 sambas!)  lots of software piracy on the
> streets, too, and in stores. games, Windows, etc.
>
> its interesting that in uruguay and argentina it doesnt appear to be
> as big of a thing.  this appears to correlate with bathroom
> technology, also, but, y´know, correlation != connection,
> neccesarily. hah.
>
> oh, while i´m writing - just picked up a cool compilation disc  in
> montevideo of dance tracks made from samples of tango music. not as
> cool or out as senor coconut, or as ironic, but still pretty
> interesting. (the samples are all cleared, from what i can tell in
> the liner notes) its called "bajo fondo tango club" - literally that
> means "low bottom tango club" ...
>
> oh, and speaking of cd-rs -  i took along 7 discs full of mp3s and
> an
> mp3 cd player, so i could carry more music in less space.  i thot i
> wsa being smart but the downside of this is in the heat, humidity,
> and compression of my pack, the discs have degraded pretty rapidly.
> the files toward the ends of all the discs now all sound a bit like
> Marcus Popp has had his way with them...
>
> ok, over and out....
>
> smh
>
>
> Steev Hise, At Large
> steev at detritus.net
> http://detritus.net/steev
>
> ignore what´s below....
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