Author: Marcos Magalhães / Agência Senado

Source: Federal Senate, 27/05/2009

The tax exemption could lead to a reduction of up to 20% in the prices of CDs and DVDs. The forecast was made this Wednesday (27) by the director general of Som Livre, Leonardo Ganem, during the seminar A Tributação ea Prática da Piracy in Brazil, promoted by the Education, Culture and Sport Commission (CE), in partnership with the American Chamber of Commerce of Rio de Janeiro.

According to Ganem, Brazil still has a “vigorous” market for music. It ranks 12th in the world in terms of revenue. Even so, it was in Brazil that, as he informed, one of the highest rates of drop in sales over this decade. And the main culprit for this fall, he said, is piracy.

In 2008, informed the director, 2,5 billion musical tracks were consumed in the country, of which almost 1 billion were downloaded illegally on the Internet. Pirated CDs occupied 26% of the market, while 27% remained for legally produced CDs.

The executive director of the Brazilian Institute of Ethics in Competition, Patrícia Blanco, said that the high tax burden charged in Brazil cannot be accepted as a justification for illegal trade by citizens, who often claim not to see the return of taxes charged on public services Of Quality.

- As long as we have this vision, we will not leave the vicious circle of evasion - warned Patricia.

The lawyer Dalton Cesar Miranda asked to be careful with what he called “piracy taxation”, that is, with initiatives to legalize fairs where imported products of dubious origin are sold.

Marcos Magalhães / Senado Agency
(Reproduction is authorized subject to a quote from the Senate Agency)