Originally Posted by CosmeLiccardo  Hey guys, my case is pretty weird, here it goes.
I live in Venenzuela, this is currently the strangest country in the world, economically speaking. Our president is a leftist bastard filled with social resentment, so he knows very little about what it takes to build an industry. After many opposers tried to knock him down from the government, our international reserves plunged so he had to decree a "currency exchange control" to avoid further flee of capital from our nation. This meant that we would only have the right to change national currency (Bolivares) into foreign currency (Dollars, Euros...) under regulated parameters.
Little by little, the government started to take away the right to change currency to many companies that imported certain products. Eventually, it reached the record distribution companies.
So, while minimum wage is about 800Bs (373 $) a month in official exchange rate (2,15Bs per $), most products rose their prices according to what´s called a "black market" dollar, that´s currently about 6,5 Bs per $. This means that a 13$ record costs about 85Bs to import, so record stores sell them at about 120Bs. This means that ONE record can cost about 15% of a monthly minimum wage. This also means that a 40$ DVD can cost about 35% of a monthly minimum wage. Since almost 70% of Venezuela´s population earns minimum wage or less, buying original music is a bit hard, so they buy pirate copies for about 10Bs in the street.
The same thing happens with software. I make the effort to buy original plugins, but
it´s really hard. Another something to consider is the fact that our music industry is somewhat less than developed. Most of my clients are indie bands that pay their own recordings, so prices can never reach what they are in the US. In my city the average price per hour is about 70Bs, officially that´s about 33$, but in reality, that´s only about 11$ per hour, so...you get the picture.
I think it sucks that people in the US complain about how they are poor and can´t afford shit with their 5$ an hour wages, at least they have dollars to buy them with and not some shitty piece of paper that doesn´t even qualify as currency. However, most online radios and online music and video companies ban Latin American countries like Venezuela, because of our piracy rates, you think this is fair?
Piracy issues in our countries at least have very little to do with being cheap, yet most of the download sites where people get their free music here are American sites, so why do we get banned for piracy? |