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Brazilian Pop Music Scene Thrives on Piracy

langelgjm writes "When people talk about the failing business model of the traditional record company, they often only offer vague suggestions as to how things would work otherwise. But a concrete example of a music scene that thrives on piracy is to be found in Brazil, in the form of tecnobrega. From the article: 'While piracy is the bane of many musicians trying to control the sale of their songs, tecnobrega artists see counterfeiters as key to their success ... Ronaldo Lemos, a law professor at Brazil's respected Getulio Vargas Foundation, an elite Rio de Janeiro think tank and research center, says tecnobrega and other movements like it represent a new business model for the digital era, where music is transformed from a good to a service.'"

6 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Welcome to 2006 by Smidge204 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Looks like someone finally got around to watching Steal This Film.

    =Smidge=

    1. Re:Welcome to 2006 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually I learned about this from the documentary Good Copy Bad Copy http://www.goodcopybadcopy.net/ which I think I read about on /.

  2. Re:Yes, actually. The cat does "got my tongue." by Xiaran · · Score: 2, Informative

    With regards to your sig... one space after the period was not really started by the internet... but became the new typographic convention once everyone started using mostly proportional fonts. Its the defacto typographic standard these days and has been for quite some time. THe fonts these days are designed with having a single space in mind. Im not a graphic designer but have many of them as friends.

  3. Re:Brazilian Pop Music Scene Thrives on Piracy by Nosklo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Way to try to justify your criminal activity, slashfags. Being a Brazilian "criminal" as you wish to say, I would like to state:
    • Nobody purchases original CDs here. People just get them on the streets, with "3 for 5 reais" price tags (~$1 each CD)
    • Trash music is everywhere. It is hard to listen to good music nowadays, be it in the radio, the clubs, or the stupid loud car sound systems around the city.
    • Musicians get almost nothing selling CDs by normal means (recorder company contracts etc), if you're not a TOP 20 you make more money with shows/presentations anyway, making it very good to spread your music - the more the better
    • "Lend me your CD so I can copy it" is normal practice, creating even many "pirated pirate copies" which are copies of pirate CDs purchased on the street.
    • Soulseek, donkey2k, kazaa are your friends. You find everything Brazilian.
    • There are a few websites promoting local FREE AS IN SPEECH music/art. Like Estudio Livre.
      Good stuff in these websites make me want more, make me want to know the artist behind them. Lately I was chatting with "Varios Um", a Brazilian artist which has very good FREE songs published here.
    I have very few original CDs and don't feel any pressure into purchasing more. If things keep this way I will keep downloading free licensed and unlicensed content. The same applies to movies and games.
    --
    find -name "*base*" -exec chown us {} \; ; ln -s /dev/zero /dev/chance ; make time
  4. Re:Brazilian Pop Music Scene Thrives on Piracy by synthespian · · Score: 2, Informative

    Nobody purchases original CDs here. People just get them on the streets, with "3 for 5 reais" price tags (~$1 each CD)

    I do. I would rather buy music on a one-song basis from iTunes but due to this widespread piracy here, Apple doesn't seem to give a shit about Brazil.

    Trash music is everywhere. It is hard to listen to good music nowadays, be it in the radio, the clubs, or the stupid loud car sound systems around the city.

    Why is that? Maybe it has to do with the music industry being overwhelmed by these favela freeloader fuckers with no music talent but with a beat box and the street commerce that is driving artists to a difficult situation, while the very good Brazilian music people enjoy from London to Tokyo is having a hard time just surviving. Tom Jobim (the guy who wrote "The Girl from Ipanema") used to complain that an artist could never get filthy rich in Brazil, even though even Frank Sinatra recorded The Girl From Ipanema and Bossa Nova plays worldwide daily on thousands of radios ever since the late 50's.

    Musicians get almost nothing selling CDs by normal means (recorder company contracts etc), if you're not a TOP 20 you make more money with shows/presentations anyway, making it very good to spread your music - the more the better

    The music industry's to blame here. I remember back in the 90's when Real had dollar-parity, CDs here cost the double what they would cost me in New York. Now the cancer has spread and there's no stopping it.

    Streets of Brazil are overwhelmed with street vendors ("camelôs") who pay no taxes and sell pirate products.

    Yeah. Brazil's the future. You wanna see how bad it gets you just look at what's going on here.

    --
    Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
  5. Not piracy by pazu · · Score: 2, Informative

    Why people are calling this "piracy" when the artists themselves are handing over the originals to be copied? This is not piracy, this is free, lawful, copying.

    --
    Close the world, open the NeXT