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.'"

Re:Brazilian Pop Music Scene Thrives on Piracy

[AndyST]

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

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.

In Soviet Japan

[CurbyKirby]

... 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]

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.

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

[Futurepower(R)]

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" sound paved the way for tecnobrega, claims to have sold more than 4 million CDs nationwide, avoiding traditional distribution networks and marketing its CDs directly through news stands and other unconventional outlets."

And: ' "Before you couldn't get your record played on the radio if you couldn't afford payola. Now if a song hits big with the aparelhagens, the radio has no choice but to play it," says Metralha. "The dynamic has changed." '

Brazil seems to be ahead of the rest of the world in creating new forms of music. It's not surprising that cultural changes in how music is distributed happen in Brazil.

Back To The Future

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

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.

Re:Brazilian Pop Music Scene Thrives on Piracy

[orclevegam]

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 be locked away, but the fact is, until you've been convicted and run out of appeals you aren't legally a criminal, therefore if you get arrested for violating a law, appeal it to the supreme court and have the law overturned, you're not a criminal. There's also a difference between saying you're innocent of a crime that you either committed but didn't want to be caught for, or didn't commit and are falsely convicted of, and saying you're innocent of a crime because you don't think it should be illegal in the first place. If you fall into the later category it's your duty to appeal to the supreme court and convince them of why exactly it is that that law should be repealed.

Re:Freeloaders ahoy in Brazil

[Anonymous Coward]

...But it's the only music out of Brazil that I've ever heard of.

It's not my favorite, for sure, but I can see the creativity and energy involved. More interesting, musically and academically, than the stogy old crap that everybody else is putting out. I probably just don't like it 'cause I'm getting old.

As for the lumpenproletariat nature of the listeners, well, that's always where the best music comes from. Rap, rock, jazz, blues, country...all of them were originally seen as low-class crap for the low-class subcultures. And, were originally seen as 'unlistenable' by the upper class. And all of them faded quickly into obscurity, of course. Er...

So, that music will probably have a greater effect on the world than anything coming out of the big cities in Brazil. Ha!

Re:tecnobrega , is it for everyone

[SCHecklerX]

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?