Source: The State of S. Paulo - 06/12/2010

By Carlos Alberto Sardenberg

Seventy million Brazilians bought some pirated product in the last year. Seventy million! This is equivalent to half the population over 16 years old. The vast majority, almost 80%, buy CDs and DVDs and made more than one acquisition in the period surveyed by the Federation of Commerce of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Fecomércio-Rio).

Let's say there are four purchases, on average, per person. We therefore have something like 280 million “small crimes” committed by, say, legal citizens.

The consumer, in theory, does not necessarily know that he is practicing piracy. He doesn't have to go to a dark alley, with a wad of notes in his pocket, to exchange for a DVD hidden in a paper bag. It makes the purchase in the open, in stores, kiosks in crowded galleries or even in camelódromos installed in entirely public places.

If you want invoice, not electronic, you will receive. It is true that sometimes the seller gives the flag and asks the customer: what value do you want on the bill? But as the consumer does everything in public, he can maintain as good the assumption that if the trade is there, in the eyes of everyone and even the authorities, it can only be legal. The counter salesman - not the business owner - can claim the same thing. It is there, working in plain sight, so ... It can even stick in the courts.

Now, let's speak frankly. Everyone knows you're a pirate. In fact, people look for that trade because they know it is cheaper there, much cheaper. Everyone also knows that there are two types of pirated products: one is entirely counterfeit, a copy generally of worse quality; another is the legitimate but smuggled product. This is a little more expensive, according to rules known in this medium.

Thus, we no longer have the presumption of innocence, but tacit consent to the commission of a crime. And here's the real problem: tolerance for “small crimes” is on people's minds, in the culture of society. Attention, it is not only in popular culture, because, through research by Fecomércio-Rio, even though most buyers are in the poorest classes, half of the people in classes A and B also acquire piracy.

Buying in the illegal trade appears as a behavior similar to a small tax evasion in the Income Tax, a consultation without a receipt, an employee hired without a formal contract and so on.

For some, it is pure cleverness - "I am not a fool to pay R $ 35 for a CD, if there is a corner for R $ 2". Others try to present the pirated purchase as an act of rebellion, a kind of protest against capitalism - "I am not going to give money to these companies and these guys". Still others present their attitude as a political act against the system - "Am I going to pay taxes for these politicians to steal?"

All three of these categories know they are cheating. They know perfectly well that they are committing a crime, but they consider it normal behavior in this society. Killing someone cannot. But “small” crimes, why not, if everyone does?

It is, therefore, a cultural and political problem. The person here reaches the elite of society - by money, by election or by appointment - and the first thing that occurs to him is that he no longer has to respect the law and the rules. Skip the line, buy a ticket without getting in line, park in a prohibited place, go through the red light (notice how official vehicles commit all these types of infractions), take out an identity card in the section chief's office, find the special treatment natural . Young people rising in life, but who have not yet arrived there, aspire to this treatment and, for a start, they are already, for example, parking in a vacancy for the elderly.

Now, in this climate, why not buy a pirate, even if the person has money to buy it legally? For these people, the problem is not money, but cleverness, trickery, taking advantage.

Which leads us to another side of this story, that of people who buy the pirated product because they have no way of acquiring the legal one. These are, say, the least guilty. They know they are not doing the right thing, but they cannot resist temptation. They buy the last pirated film because that is the only possibility. And they say they would buy it legally, if it was cheaper.

And here we fall in the Brazil cost. Legal production and trade pay high interest on capital, exaggerated taxes, spend resources on obtaining licenses, operating licenses, payment of various fees. It is expensive and complicated to do business honestly in Brazil.

This is the powerful cause of informality and piracy. There are small and even medium-sized enterprises that simply would not survive within the law. This presents them with a dilemma: in informality, they cannot grow beyond a certain, limited point; formalized, they risk dying prematurely. In any case, the damage is to the national economy.

There are therefore two problems. One cultural, the other economic. And the ugliest role is that of the rich and the elite.