Piracy In Developing Countries Driven By High Prices

langelgjm writes "The Social Science Research Council, an independent, non-profit organization, today released a major report on music, film and software piracy in developing economies. It's a product of three years of work, and the authors conclude that piracy is primarily driven by excessively high prices and that anti-piracy education and enforcement efforts have failed. Still, chief editor Joe Karaganis believes that businesses can survive in these high piracy environments. The report is free to readers in low-income countries, but behind a paywall for certain high-income countries, although the SSRC notes, 'For those who must have it for free anyway, you probably know where to look.'"

Well no shit

[Anonymous Coward]

The average person in Cambodia earns one dollar a day. Some kids collect scrape metal and if they collect $0.25 worth of them, they can go to school the next day (they are not only happy about it, but work to get to school!). Do you really think they're going to spend it on entertainment than costs more than they make in a month?

I was visiting there last year and unsurprisingly they did have stores with pirated goods. The largest mall in Phnom Penh has full floor of tv shows, movies, games, applications, everything you can think of. Games and movies cost $1-2 while all seasons of The Simpsons cost $10, all neatly packed and everything. The other series with less dvd's cost even less of course, and this was inside a big mall and they probably added some extra to the price since I was foreigner (they didn't list prices but you had to ask). Maybe you can get them even cheaper from street vendors.

And while speaking of Cambodia, it's quite nice place to visit, not your usual holiday place. Even in the cities some of the streets are just sand and when you go out all the tuk tuk drivers come asking you where you want to go. If you want to go for a few beers and a pizza, the driver takes you there and waits for you while you do your stuff and drink beer, even if it takes long time. Then you just give them like $5 for being your driver the whole night, and they're happy since they're still getting a lot more than people usually. That's why there isn't any shortage of tuk tuk drivers either. And yeah, girl bars (or ladyboy bars if you prefer that) are open 24/7 and there's happy pizzas with special ingredient ;-)

Re:Well no shit

[hjf]

DVD region codes were meant to keep you from watching a movie that was unreleased in your territory (OH NOES!), not to charge poor people less.

Back in the 90s, I bought my CDs online from Amazon,CD Universe, CDNOW because it was (much) cheaper for me to pay the $6 shipping than walk to the store 5 blocks away and buy it there.