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.'"

Welcome to 2006

[Smidge204 (605297)]

Looks like someone finally got around to watching Steal This Film [stealthisfilm.com].

=Smidge=

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

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

GCBC

[racerx509 (204322)]

Looks like someone finally got a chance to see "Good Copy, Bad Copy".
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7727 [creativecommons.org]

"vague suggestions", my shiny metal a$$

[mcmonkey (96054)]

You can't make money giving away music...except for taper/trader friendly bands like the Grateful Dead. And I doubt 50 Cent got any royalties from mix tapes with his early stuff, but the bling comes from somewhere.

It's kinda like saying, everyone complains about Microsoft but there are only vague suggestions about alternatives.

trippy, dude.

[mcmonkey (96054)]

Well, I bothered to RTFA. It mentions both mixed tapes for hip hop and trading tapes for the Grateful Dead. Both well established, time tested schemes.

So what's "vague" about these "suggestions"?

Re:

[Xiaran (836924)]

I think the point is that CDs are dead/dying... digital exchange of music == a sudden and dramatic drop in supply scarcity. There are many other revenue streams artist can and do pursue to make money... live shows... endorsements... tee shirt sales... licensing of their intellectual property. None of this is vague. The people really making the noise are the ones with the most to lose from traditional music distribution channels changing. Some big name bands accasionally do but Prince recently gave his new a

Re:

[synthespian (563437)]

There are many other revenue streams artist can and do pursue to make money... live shows... endorsements... tee shirt sales...

Yes, I can fully picutre in my imagination how Brazilians would be creative with this too, from what I've seen at the (few) major artists that ever step here for a performance: fake tickets, pirate t-shirts looking just like the original, etc.

Re:

[Xiaran (836924)]

While you have a point I think its a lot more difficult to catch someone selling a fake shirt outside a gig(if you wanted to) or selling a fake ticket than someone downloading a mp3 from a torrent.

Re:

[Volante3192 (953645)]

You can't make money giving away music

Accurate if your entire business model consists of selling tracks of your music on a tangible media.

Inaccurate if you include live shows, merchandise, et cetera.

Re:

[SCHecklerX (229973)]

You can't make money giving away music.

Giving away CDs and downloads as promotion for your live shows seems like a good idea to me.

Yes, actually. The cat does "got my tongue."

[Impy the Impiuos Imp (442658)]

This is an excellent example of how what we think of as ethical derives not from a god, but rather from evolved justifications of behavior. There's a mighty struggle going on to re-define taking music without the author's permission as ethical, based on the ego-soothing concepts that it's really in their interest.

Re:

[Xiaran (836924)]

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.

Misleading quote

[multisync (218450)]

From the article: 'While piracy is the bane of many musicians trying to control the sale of their songs ...

Who are these musicians who "control the sale of their songs?"

I, for one, welcome these overlords:

[yoprst (944706)]

SELECT country_name, "Pop Music Scene Thrives on Piracy" FROM countries WHERE GDP_per_capita < some_limit

Before it was a good it was a service

[szyzyg (7313)]

Back before edison and all those other people figured out how to record music the musicians had to play music live.

Re:Before it was a good it was a service

[AndersOSU (873247)]

See that's a common misconception. Actually Bach pioneered the micropayment financial system when he used Germany's ubiquitous surveillance to monitor and debit 5 pfennig from the bank account anyone caught humming any portion of "Christ lag in Todesbanden"

Misleading?

[east coast (590680)]

If the artist is giving this stuff away is it piracy?

It seems that the issue is getting a bit blurred between the concepts of giving something away and piracy.

I know it's not a popular idea but I still think that an artist should have rights to do what he wants with his creation. If they want to give it away for free to build a good fanbase that's great but that still doesn't dismiss people who are taking something without paying for it if the artist has put a price tag on it. Nor does it justify the down

Proof positive the copyright regime is misguided?

[Camael (1048726)]

This is what happens in Brazil, 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. Artists, who make their money off of live shows, deliver their CDs directly to the street vendors, who determine the price that market can bear. This "mixtape" phenomenon is popular in other parts of the world, including Argentina and the United States, where it is an integral part of hip-hop.
"Piracy is the way to get established and get your name out. There's no way to stop it, so we're using it to our advantage," explains Gabi Amarantos, who frequently appears on Brazilian TV on the strength of bootleg sales of her CDs (from which artists don't get a cut).

Technically, there is no copyright infringement involved since the artists themselves allow their works to be duplicated.

What is however interesting is that this technobrega movement severely undermines one of the arguments frequently cited by the RIAA in favour of stricter copyright laws, which is that piracy undermines the ability of the music and film industries to invest in the next generation of local talent by lowering revenues from current sales.

Also from the article :

"This year the multinational record labels will only release about 40 records by Brazilian artists, while tecnobrega artists will release around 400," said Ronaldo Lemos, a law professor at Brazil's respected Getulio Vargas Foundation. "The record industry argues if intellectual property isn't protected there will be no innovation. But tecnobrega has shown that's not true."

The original intention of copyright as stated in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause/ [wikipedia.org] was :

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

Given that the tecnobrega movement has shown that copyright protection is not necessary to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, isn't it time to reconsider the whole basis of copyright law?

Re:

[east coast (590680)]

What is however interesting is that this technobrega movement severely undermines one of the arguments frequently cited by the RIAA in favour of stricter copyright laws, which is that piracy undermines the ability of the music and film industries to invest in the next generation of local talent by lowering revenues from current sales.

Also from the article :

"This year the multinational record labels will only release about 40 records by Brazilian artists, while tecnobrega artists will release around 4

Re:Proof positive the copyright regime is misguide

[gstoddart (321705)]

What is however interesting is that this technobrega movement severely undermines one of the arguments frequently cited by the RIAA in favour of stricter copyright laws, which is that piracy undermines the ability of the music and film industries to invest in the next generation of local talent by lowering revenues from current sales.

It's not so much that it undermines the argument, as it underscores it for what it is -- a business model they insist is necessary for the production of music, but which proba

In Soviet Japan

[CurbyKirby (306431)]

... Manga copies Doujinshi.

In Free Culture, Lawrence Lessig describes the doujinshi (copyright-infringing comics) industry in Japan and describes how it not only fuels the market for "official" manga comics but can influence them as well.

These copycat comics are not a tiny part of the manga market. They are huge. More than 33,000 "circles" of creators from across Japan produce these bits of Walt Disney creativity. More than 450,000 Japanese come together twice a year, in the largest public gathering in the country, to exchange and sell them. This market exists in parallel to the mainstream commercial manga market. In some ways, it obviously competes with that market, but there is no sustained effort by those who control the commercial manga market to shut the doujinshi market down. It flourishes, despite the competition and despite the law. ...

Yet this illegal market exists and indeed flourishes in Japan, and in the view of many, it is precisely because it exists that Japanese manga flourish.

Linky: http://www.sslug.dk/~chlor/lessig/freeculture/c-piracy.html#creators [sslug.dk]

Freeloaders ahoy in Brazil

[synthespian (563437)]

Just so you know, nobody listens to this in major cities. I don't think this stuff is nowhere near the airwaves of major cities. It's a very low-wage kinda subculture thing and as such gets very little attention. Except where it's lumpenproletariat galore, which is basically their scene, I suppose.

"Brega" means "tacky", having extremely bad taste. Like refrigerator penguins. Like when you try to interpret a fashion trend but get it all wrong because it looks so cheap and ridiculous. Imagine rednecks, but a 1000 times worse. Definitely not mainstream. And limited to a specific region of Brazil.

Low-wage Brazilians typically don't want to pay for anything. They get tax discounts after tax discounts. A typical porter or handyman is a tax-free guy. He gets free medical services and education (which both suck, BTW...), sustained by those that are between a rock and a hard place - the middle class that does pay a hefty 37% tax on income; and the businesses, industries, etc. That's 3-4 months working for the government. Yup. Doctors, engineers, consultancy firms - anyone who's not poor. The leftist corrupt government caters to these people, giving out more government aid and tax-cuts, because then they vote for them.

So why would they pay for music? They're already a bunch of freeloaders, anyway. If they're unemployed, they just pack up and go buy contraband products in neighboring Paraguay (they have a tax-free policy on imports, I think) to resell on sidewalks. No Union protest... Just their very own tax-free shortcut to survival. This is just how their life is. How fucked up. And now some foreigners and academics are fascinated with this...LOL.

Plus, that music sucks. Real bad.

No need to look at Brazil

[The-Bus (138060)]

It's been happening here for a while. If you're a new band you can get critical acclaim and exposure at a level that wasn't possible say, fifteen years ago (unless you had a friend at Spin or RS that would do a write-up on you).

Kelefah Sanneh of the NY Times summed it up nicely in this article [nytimes.com] about Vampire Weekend [vampireweekend.com]:

For a proactive indie-rock fan in 2007 a debut album is more like an end product than a starting point. By the time that first shrink-wrapped and bar-coded CD finds its way into shops, the band will probably be old news, having suffered through many online cycles of hype and backlash. In a world that won't wait patiently for an album release date, it probably makes more sense to talk about a debut MP3, a debut YouTube appearance, a debut MySpace page.

In a sense this new state of affairs is really an old one, a throwback to the early 1960s, when concerts and singles ruled, and albums were merely compilations. And it probably makes bands (not to mention record companies) nervous: It means you can pick up fans faster, and lose them faster too.

I don't know how the economics work, but I'm sure that for certain bands, if they can give away an album to get people to come to a show, they may end up making more money that way.

Back To The Future

[ObsessiveMathsFreak (773371)]

From the dawn of history, music has always been a service, and never a good. I don't see why the existence of ultra rich musicians should be seen as anything other than an anomaly.

This looks like...

[Yaa 101 (664725)]

This looks a lot like the cut-throat competition of the Jamaican recording industry until they signed the Berne convention in 1994, after that date they became irrelevant from a cultural point of view.

Re:Brazilian Pop Music Scene Thrives on Piracy

[oliverthered (187439)]

just because something is against the law doesn't mean that it's wrong.

Re:

[orclevegam (940336)]

Laws have never struck me as democratic. I don't remember ever voting for the DMCA.

Re:Brazilian Pop Music Scene Thrives on Piracy

[by Anonymous Coward]

King Copyright: I am your king.
Woman: Well I didn't vote for you.
King Copyright: You don't vote for kings.
Woman: Well how'd you become king then?
[Angelic music plays... ]
King Copyright: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Copyright, was to carry the DMCA. THAT is why I am your king.
Dennis: [interrupting] Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' laws is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

Re:Brazilian Pop Music Scene Thrives on Piracy

[orclevegam (940336)]

I don't remember ever voting for the DMCA.

So only laws that you voted for apply to you?

That's not what I said. I said laws never seemed democratic, not that they don't apply. I do feel however that it's everyone duty to not follow unethical or immoral laws, and if arrested for violating those laws to take it to the highest possible court they can in the hope of getting the law overturned.

Re:

[orclevegam (940336)]

First, I never voted for the DMCA, and I know a whole bunch of people who would much rather it never became a law. The senators voted for it, not the citizens, and so if I choose not to follow the DMCA it doesn't mean I'm refusing to follow the vote of the citizens because they never voted for it. Also, because of the way our legal system works, just about the only way to have a law repealed is to be arrested for violating it and to appeal to the supreme court. Finally, I'm not asking for criminals not to b

Re:Brazilian Pop Music Scene Thrives on Piracy

[enjahova (812395)]

It's called civil disobedience. When you have a fundamental issue with a law sometimes the best way to fight it is to break it. Either enough people break it to make enforcement impossible, or you break it publicly to bring attention to the injustice.
It may hurt your head, but some laws are passed in undemocratic ways, or have consequences that harm democracy. For those times, you might need civil disobedience.
Other times, laws like copyright enforcement just simply go against the grain of human nature and will be broken regardless of government action.

Re:

[Kamots (321174)]

Ah... so lets say that there was a purely hypothetical law saying that if you know a Jew you have to turn them in so they can be summarily executed... you wouldn't call this morally wrong and disobey it?

Or... that wasn't democratically decided on?

How about slavery in the US then?

Law and ethics/morality are seperate, although (sadly) they're often confused.

Re:

[king-manic (409855)]

I think you got that wrong. Who is to judge on which laws to abide? Keep the democratic principles, even if they sometime bother you.

The other direction is right. Not everything that is allowed by law is ethically justified.

I think it swings both ways, sometimes things allowed by law are unethical and something disallowed by law aren't always unethical. Legalist systems represent one idea of morality and their complexity often results in unintended consequences.

Re:

[Logic and Reason (952833)]

Who is to judge on which laws to abide?

This may shock you, but you are the one who gets to decide which laws you obey and which you disobey. You may use your morals, your "democratic principles," or even a coin flip to decide this, as you see fit. Of course, the law isn't going to give you a get-out-of-jail-free card for any of these reasons.

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[Nosklo (815041)]

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 any

Re:

[synthespian (563437)]

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 fave

Re:

[shaitand (626655)]

Because that is the country CNN wrote the story about. Why not Brazil?

Read the last paragraphs. Brazil is 1st in change.

[Futurepower(R) (558542)]

From the story: "Tecnobrega producer Beto Metralha said the music developed out of necessity in a place where few musicians could afford to pay a whole band and most music consumers don't take home enough money to buy non-pirated CDs. The average ensemble consists of little more than a keyboardist and a singer, sometimes accompanied by an electric bass. The signature shuffle rhythm is derived entirely from a single program on an electronic keyboard."

And: "Brazil's top-selling Banda Calypso, whose "brega"

Re:

[orclevegam (940336)]

my question is why "Brazil" is in the title. the us, maybe, but brazil?

Because the article is about how a Brazilian music genre is using file sharing to promote bands. Something that only a handful of artists in America are exploiting (Trent Reznor comes to mind, as well as Wierd Al Yankovic, both of which clearly know their fans).

Re:brazil?

[djdavetrouble (442175)]

they'd just make sure that anything sold at their concerts had their logo on it.

Even the Blotters ?!?

Re:tecnobrega , is it for everyone

[ericrost (1049312)]

If "your thing" is not practicing your craft, and is instead to try to get us to pay you in perpetuity for the favor of having once played some music, go fuck yourself. You need to earn your money just like everyone else. You earn it by doing something. That something can certainly be performing music. I truly enjoy live music. I pay a lot of money for concert tickets. I buy SWAG at the shows.

I wish I could just sit back and let everyone who read my specs pay me a royalty for the favor of doing my job. Instead I have to produce new content. I could do this by charging per document I PRODUCE, but I choose instead to be an employee. Doesn't really change the model, though, to remain an employee, I must continue to produce useful work. Otherwise they'll show me the door.

Being and artsy fuck doesn't exempt you from needing to contribute.

Re:

[SCHecklerX (229973)]

no mod points today, but this pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter.

There is no right to being rich just because you sing or are in a band. Play local shows, get paid for doing it. Use CDs and downloads to *PROMOTE* your music. If you become popular enough, play bigger shows.

On a somewhat related topic: Why anybody would actually pay for lossy downloads not encoded, tagged, or named the way you keep your own collection is beyond me. How about either providing in FLAC or sell CDs for $5?

Re:tecnobrega , is it for everyone

[ScentCone (795499)]

You need to earn your money just like everyone else

It's a shame you can't get your head around the fact that some performances take years of prep and production work, and involve poeple who can only come together in the studio or in some other collaborative manner. Such recordings have plenty of audience interest, and involve material that can never provide income for the performers as they tour bars or concert halls selling t-shirts and getting a cut of the beer gross.

There ARE people who want to purchase a compilation of recordings from over time, or ensemble pieces that involved many studio sessions to create. They WANT the artists to be able to dedicate their time (and thus derive their income from) sales after the fact of doing that hard work. I don't want your desire to have that recording for free to prevent me from being able to purchase such recordings. But the sentiment that such recordinds should be fair game for ripping off because you'd rather suck down smoke or stand in line to take a piss at a concert venue is a false dichotomy. If you think a band can make a good living by giving away their work, and charging you for tickets and bumper stickers, great. I'm sure you can persuade them all to pursue that approach. But that has nothing to do with whether or not its up to YOU spread a studio work around to 100,000 of your very best personal, and completely anonymous, friends.

Don't like musicians and filmakers who choose to work FIRST and entertain their audience afterwards? Then don't do business with those people. Why are you ranting? Just do business with people who don't want to charge you any money for their studio work, and you'll both be happy. Leave the people who want to see films made or other long-term projects evolve do what they want. You can just ignore it. Except you can't, because you want those things too, you just want to be entertained for free.

Re:

[ScentCone (795499)]

It's never been easier to produce music in the comfort of your own home

Really? You can seat a 40-piece orchestra in your home? You can shoot a mountaineering scene for a complex film in your home? You set up a grand piano and a choir in your home? No wonder you don't care that it costs money up front to prepare films and recordings as parts of large projects - you're obviously already very wealthy.

Re:

[jamar0303 (896820)]

The parent post did say "to a level of quality that far surpasses the demands of regular popular music". Not a very high bar, and certainly not as high as you're setting.

Re:

[ScentCone (795499)]

The parent post did say "to a level of quality that far surpasses the demands of regular popular music". Not a very high bar, and certainly not as high as you're setting.

The point is that his observation about whether and how you can make certain types of recordings/images at home has nothing do to, whatsoever, with whether it's reasonable for someone else to rip off that work afterwards. If you want to give it away to promote your other ventures, that's fantastic. But that's up to you, not the person wh

Re:

[ScentCone (795499)]

Stop bringing the straw man of movies into this. Some movies are worthy of seeing in a theater. I will pay for that. No one but you brought up movies. We're talking of music.

Stop? Why? YOU'RE the one that's bringing up the issue of producing something first, and then collecting money for it after the fact as people enjoy it, and saying that's a bad thing. A film could be shown millions of times after it's been produced. So what if YOU will pay for that. You know perfectly well that plenty of people who r

Re:

[ericrost (1049312)]

No, its simply that its a reasonable "performance" to see a film. There is an experience that I am unable to provide myself. I don't own a 40' diagonal screen. I don't own a 1000W 13 channel digital stereo system.

Like I said in another spot here, its not about what you think is intellectually honest, I'm speaking to the economic realities these companies/performers should deal with. If they don't, they'll be bankrupt. Just because its wrong to copy music/movies doesn't stop people from doing it, so you need

Re:

[king-manic (409855)]

The concept of tecnobrega as discussed in the article is an interesting one. If you are planning on being a stage band and making your money off of the shows you perform then it's great. However what happens if that's not our thing. For a hugely sucesful artist who's shows are sold out they are being stolen from with no added benefit at all. This "tecnobrega" only favours the new or the unsuccesful.

And this is bad because? If your already successful and you can fill the biggest venue in any city then more m

Re:

[rucs_hack (784150)]

Nah, 'Citizen of the Galaxy', that has teh pirates!!111one.

Possibly my favoite after 'Friday'.