Media Piracy in Emerging Economies, an academic report on pricing and copyright infringement in poor countries, comes to the conclusion that high media prices (as measured against the average wage in poor countries) are responsible for piracy — that is, when you control for social attitudes towards copying, enforcement differences, and so on, the largest predictor of whether a country will have rampant copyright infringement is whether the media in that country is priced high relative to peoples’ earning power.

To make their point, the authors have released the report under a provocative “Consumer’s Dilemma license” that charges escalating rates depending on whether your IP address is in a rich or poor country.

Continue reading… “Poor Countries Have More Piracy Because Media Costs Too Much — Report”