At least Mexico is Number One in something...

This commercial focuses on a mother that comes home with a pirated movie, one she describes was incredibly cheap. Her mother asks her if that is illegal, to which she replies that of course not, because she bought it. At that moment, the son is about to go play with his friends, but his mother tells him he has to study for an exam that he has the following day. He tells her that he doesn't have to study because he has the exam. She asks, "You stole the exam?" He replies "No, I bought it," before walking out. The messages say this:

1) Pirated movies don't look good

2) But you as a parent look worse

3) What are you teaching your child?

For me, the words pirating is synonymous with Mexico. Even goods that aren’t normally thought of can be sold as pirated products, like perfume and medicine. The ordinary citizens that become CD and DVD vendors as they step onto the humid and sardine-packed subway of Mexico City entice consumers with extremely cheap prices and their amazing skills as possible auctioneers. They carry backpacks filled with thin cases holding burned CDs and DVDs and a printed version of the original CD or DVD cover. Because there are street vendors and multiple stands of these entertainment items on every busy intersection of downtown, pirated material has become not only common, but accepted.

Did you know that Mexico is the #1 country for pirated material in both music and movies? Though China and Russia are most commonly projected as the “piracy powerhouses” of the globe, Mexico has more than double the estimated trade losses than either of these countries and the gap is astoundingly wide. China’s estimated $250 million and Russia’s $689 million trade losses are nothing compared to Mexico’s $970 million. Since these statistics are for 2006, I imagine that these numbers have grown quite a large amount.

I am not exactly proud about being number 1 in pirated music and movies, but I have to admit it’s convenient. These copies of CDs and DVDs are unbelievably cheap. Each one costs less than $2 American dollars and, not to my surprise, they are typically of good quality. Come to think of it, I do not think I have seen more than 20 purchased original movies in Mexico.

However, this is not simply in Mexico. All over Latin America, pirated movies and music are sold for cheap prices, mainly because the materials needed to make them are readily available. Businesses similar to computer labs provide internet service for the hour in Mexico. Normally the rates are about 80 cents per hour and usually, these businesses sell CD-Rs at about 70 cents each, perfect for burning music and movies, especially when the mass production of these materials yield decent profits.

The laws dealing with piracy are weak in many of these countries. For example, in Mexico the law dictates that in order to make an arrest, there must be a revenue motive. “So if you say you are taping something in a movie theater because you want to make a present to your grandmother, you're off the hook.” As a result, the worldwide anti-piracy director for the Motion Picture Association of America is pushing for harsher penalties for individuals caught pirating. Other attempts at reducing pirating include training dogs to sniff out significant amounts of DVDs in airports.




Software Pirating

A type of pirating I had not really thought of is software pirating. I recently bought the 2007 Microsoft Office student version for my laptop, which was quite expensive, and installed the programs on two different computers. Since the software allows you to install the programs up to five times, I don’t think that I will have a problem with software. However, when a friend told me she had not bought the software but needed the program, I offered her my CD. She put the CD in and when it asked for the security code she looked at mine and changed a few of the letters and numbers. The program installed successfully. This is the art of pirating loopholes.

Pirating on College Campuses

Illegal downloading by college students is common. At the University of New Mexico, like many universities, student’s high-speed internet connections and a lack of money is like TELLING them to take initiative and search for free music and movies.