Pirated CDs, Anyone?
It’s true, as this Reuters story reports, that pirated CDs are widely available here in Ecuador. The most important line: “But it’s tough to crack down on piracy with police spread thin in the fight against violent crime and little concerned by the losses of the multimillion-dollar music industry in a nation where 60 percent of people are poor.”
Intellectual property rights just don’t mean the same thing in developing countries, where first-world goods (like music CDs and computer software) are too expensive for anyone but the rich to afford.