via zunguzungu, I came across this absolutely fascinating talk on UCTV (the University of California's ten-year old educational television channel--and a rich resource!) by novelist Daniel Alarcón on book piracy in Perú. As he describes it, it is one manifestation of the much larger phenomenon of piracy of all kinds of media and documents. What is significant is that he is describing a thriving business in print piracy, not electronic piracy. Without an understanding of this vigorous economic black market in printed books, those making international laws about internet sharing, copyright, file-sharing, and piracy are only seeing a very small part of the problem of how artists can survive as artists. He raises many important points about who is buying, who is selling, who is profiting, and why this should be especially problematic in Perú.
A print version of this talk, "Life Among the Pirates" was published in Granta earlier this year. I highly recommend either viewing the video or reading the article. Here is UCTV's description. You can download the talk under a Creative Commons license.
"Daniel Alarcón is the Associate Editor of Etiqueta Negra, an award-winning monthly magazine published in his native Lima, Peru, and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Latin America Studies at UC Berkeley. In 2007, the journal Granta named Alarcón one of the Best Young American Novelists. Series: Story Hour in the Library [5/2010] [Humanities] [Show ID: 18506]"
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