Commentary

Il Pirata Messicano

According to the Mexican Federal Consumer’s Bureau (PROFECO) 75% of Mexican citizens buy counterfeit DVD’s. The main reason, they claim, is the low cost and the easy accessibility for obtaining them. The poll was performed last month on 300 residents of the Mexican Federal District (Distrito Federal) and surrounding areas.

Eighty one percent of the counterfeit-purchasing citizens said they bought their movies in flea and black markets. On average, a DVD cost them $19 pesos or $1.8 dollars. Fifty percent of the participants were married; 52% were employed, and 41% had a bachelor’s degree. Also, 33% of them (the buyers) purchase movies once a week, 27% every 2 weeks, and 1% buys DVDs every day.

All this black market piracy (not just DVDs, also CDs, shoes, cloth, etc.) translates into a $140 Billion Dollars or 15% of GDP loss for the Mexican government each year.

Last year for example, for every 10 DVDs sold in Meshico, 8 were pirate DVDs. This year, according to the Motion Picture Association of America, 75 million counterfeit copies will be sold in Aztec soil, a huge difference if you compare data from last year when the official movie industry sold only 25 million legitimately authorized DVDs in México.

Another interesting data provided to me by my undercover informant is that 4 million people pay for restricted TV (Satellite TV, cable, etc.) How many people have illicit restricted TV in México? Two million. Yes, one third of the national market consumption.

Also interesting here is that in the year 2005, México legally imported 810 million recordable DVD/CDs. Neither the Mexican black market nor the Mexican legal production industries in México are capable of consuming this massive amount of material.

Last year Mexican legal authorities impounded almost 7 million pirates DVDs. Where did the rest go? Mexican and American authorities believe Mexican piracy products go overseas, mainly to Latin-American countries. It is believed that México is the biggest producer and provider of motion picture piracy in North America.

But, who’s to blame? According to the INEGI (National Institute of Geographic Statistics and Information) 72 million Mexican citizens out of the 103 million that compose the Aztec nation (nearly 70%) live with a salary of 5 dollars a day or less and their families have an average of 4.6 members.

In a global Neo-Fascist economy, location does not matter to corporations. In other words, 99.9% of the time their price tags are global, not local or regional to accommodate local socioeconomic statistics. If corporations want fair treatment for their products in developing nations, they need to give fair prices to consumers. Are they willing to do that? For example, an i-pod carries a bigger price tag in México than the USA, Video games are the same, and so on, what a surprise!

I totally understand the position of these Mexican consumers. I spent 20 years of my life there, and necessity outweighs the secular system by far. When buying a product simply isn’t an option, piracy becomes a routine and natural activity.

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