Rampant Reproduction and Digital Democracy: Shifting Landscapes of Music Production and ‘Piracy’ in Bolivia

Abstract

This article examines the transformation of recorded music production and distribution in Bolivia that has occurred in response to the rise and growing democratisation of digital technology, especially over the past decade. It charts the collapse of the large-scale record industry—due both to high levels of piracy and to its gradual loss of technological advantage—and its replacement by a host of small-scale producers, many of which target emergent low-income markets. The dynamics of ‘pirate’ production and distribution are examined, including the key role of the video compact disc in the escalation of music piracy. It is suggested that national imaginaries, as well as economic factors, have underscored Peruvian domination of the large-scale production of pirated music for the Bolivian market. In recent years, however, dramatic reductions in the cost of reproduction equipment and optical discs, and in turn vendor profits, are leading to more localised and smaller-scale forms of domestic pirate production. The downscaling and localising of both ‘legitimate’ and ‘pirated’ record production might be seen to democratise the music industry, giving Bolivian consumers access to an unprecedented diversity of budget-priced recorded music. However, the longer-term implications of this situation for musicians' livelihoods and particular musical genres remain unclear, as does state policy with regard to the protection of cultural resources and copyright.

Keywords:

• Music Piracy
• National Imaginaries
• Record Industry
• Indigenous Music Video
• Digital Technology
• Video Compact Disc
• Bolivia

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the many musicians, record producers, vendors, ‘pirate’ suppliers, and others involved in the production, registration, consumption and policy regarding music in Bolivia and Peru who have generously given their time towards this research. Due to the sensitivities surrounding aspects of this business, I have often preserved anonymity. Nonetheless, I wish to express gratitude to Julio Katari who accompanied me on the journey to Peru, Susanna Rance for her friendship and hospitality in La Paz, and Oscar Prieto of Discolandia who, in addition to several extended interviews, kindly allowed me to make a photocopy of his collection of press cuttings relating to piracy. The Museum of Ethnography and Folklore (MUSEF), La Paz—especially Varinia Oros and director Ramiro Molina—have also been wonderfully supportive of this research. Thanks to the anonymous reviewers and to Stephen Cottrell and Hettie Malcomson for their generous feedback on earlier drafts of this essay. Finally, I gratefully acknowledge the support of the British Academy (www.britac.ac.uk) and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, (www.ahrc.ac.uk).

Notes

1. As Kusek and Leonhard (2005, 45–6) observe, ‘since a digital copy of a media object is exactly like the original, but does not in any way deplete it or remove it from further use, one can hardly compare this to the world of physical goods, where the use or possession of a product usually removes the possibility of someone owning the very same product’. Lessig (2004, 146) has also noted how every use of the Internet produces a copy, thereby leading content to become ubiquitous, and has critiqued the way copyright owners’ control has expanded as each copy is regulated by existing laws designed for physical property.

2. I use the highly unsatisfactory terms ‘global north’ and ‘global south’ with reluctance, to highlight global inequalities as regards access to technology, levels of poverty and infrastructure. The implications of other terms, such as ‘Developed World’ or ‘Third World’, seem even more problematic.

3. Arguably this also stimulated a retrospective cultural turn, in the form of an industry-induced fashion for the music of earlier decades, the past becoming less ‘a land to return to in a simple politics of memory’ than a ‘synchronic warehouse of cultural scenarios’ (Appadurai 1996, 30).

4. Alternatively known as ‘digital video disc’ or ‘digital versatile disc’.

5. For economic statistics, see for example, www.nationmaster.com/cat/eco-economy (accessed 16 June 2009).

6. For information on the history of Bolivia's record industry, see, for example, Sánchez (1996), Rojas Alcocer et al. (1994), Herrera (2003), Badani (2007) and Suárez (2009).

7. 2008 Foreign Trade Information System (SICE) figures rank Bolivian music, video and software piracy as among the highest in Latin America. Available from www.sice.oas.org/ctyindex/USA/ftbbol2008_e.pdf (accessed 10 August 2009). The IIPA has not given estimates for recorded music piracy in Bolivia since 2005, when it gave the figure of 90%. It is unclear whether this means that the IIPA views Bolivia's small economy as low priority compared with other regions.

8. Originario is the preferred term of many ‘indigenous’ Bolivian Andean people, who often identify the term indígena (although used widely by Bolivia's lowland indigenous groups) with indio (‘Indian’)—a term with strong racist connotations (but actually etymologically unrelated to indigena). The terms originario, indígena, and campesino (‘peasant’) have complex historical associations, leading Bolivia's new national constitution to adopt the practice of using all three terms in series; for example, naciones y pueblos indígena originario campesinos (‘indigenous original peasant nations and peoples’) (article 2, Nueva Constitución Política de Estado, 2008).

9. All interviews cited in this paper were conducted in Spanish.

10. La Epoca, 2 July 2006.

11. El Deber, 11 February 2003.

12. Tiempos del Mundo, 20 April 2000. Nonetheless, levels of recorded music piracy in Bolivia are presented at 85% consistently from 1996 to 2001 in the IIPA's Special 301 Report (IIPA 2002, 312).

13. See, for example, ‘La pirateria hiere a la industria y priva de $us 15 milliones al pais’, La Rázon, 1 July 2000.

14. ‘Andean Trade Preferences Act: Effect on the U.S. Economy and on Andean Drug Crop Eradication’, IIPA, 29 July 2008. Available from www.iipa.com/pdf/IIPAAndeanATPAfilingtoUSITCfinal07292008.pdf (accessed 8 November 2008).

15. El Deber, 11 February 2003

16. It is quite common for ensembles of middle-class neo-folklore musicians to own small studios, typically raising capital to purchase equipment through tours to Europe or Japan. Recordings made by such groups are largely reserved for sale during foreign tours, as domestic releases are immediately pirated.

17. See Bigenho (2002, 29–31) for a fine account of the disdain expressed by middle-class and upper-class Bolivians and by many musicians for this most ubiquitous of genres. Jones (2007, 1–2) also found similar middle-class attitudes to the popular originario music he studied in Cochabamba: ‘Many wondered why I was “wasting” my time on this music, implying, sometimes directly, that it was not worthy of serious study because it was basura (trash) and was only fit for the lower classes’.

18. In this historically hierarchical society, aspiration to enter the formal economy is perhaps best understood in terms of perceptions of success. Several individuals told me of their desire to be able to pay taxes, clearly connecting this with the achievement of status and recognition.

19. The pattern of so-called ‘legitimate’ record labels emerging out of pirate operations has many historical precedents (Manuel 1993, 6–69 and 79). Indeed, the historian Doron Ben-Atar (2004) has revealed that intellectual property piracy was crucial to the development of industrial power in North America during the nineteenth century (see also Lessig 2004, 63).

20. ‘Bolivia baila al ritmo de la piratería’, La Razón, 5 November 1999.

21. This important issue, on which I have already focused in certain conference papers, will be examined in forthcoming publications.

22. Wilson Ramirez of Banana Records claims to have released the first VCD of originario music in around 2002. This production, entitled Cha'llando sus Exitos de Oro: Walter & Segundina (‘Toasting their Golden Hits: Walter & Segundina’), features popular charango huayño songs performed by Walter Aguilar and Segundina Aira. The picture quality is poor, as Ramirez also stressed to me, but the production by this popular duo was an immediate hit. Like many other VCD productions (and pirated editions) of originario music, the cover incorrectly presents the disc as a DVD.

23. A 2004 newspaper article notes that pirated merchandise from Colombia entered Bolivia via Desaguadero and goods from Paraguay via the Chaco region. The development of these international piracy network is dated to the year 2001 (‘En los puestos callajeros solo se venden piratas de DVD’, La Razón, 13 June 2004).

24. Comparisons between disc piracy and drug trafficking are widespread. See, for example, the Motion Picture Association's study, Optical Disc Piracy v. Illegal Drug Trafficking (October 2005).

25. The Bolivian currency is the Boliviano. In April 2008, UK £1.00 was equivalent to approximately 15 Bolivianos and to US $2.00.

26. Our Peruvian journey also took in a brief visit to the city of Juliaca—a 2-hour journey by local bus from Desaguadero skirting the shores of Lake Titicaca—which many Bolivian vendors had identified as a key centre for pirate production. According to Oscar Prieto of Discolandia, everything in Juliaca is bamba (‘fake’ or ‘adulterated’): ‘it is the business city, but it's said to be the centre where one is totally swindled, utterly ripped off. It is fatal!’ However, we quickly gained the impression that Juliaca was just one of many towns producing pirated discs, even if it had been more important in the past. While certain vendors in Desaguadero mentioned purchasing stock in Juliaca, it was Lima that they characterised as ‘the mega-centre of piracy’.

27. For example, when my bag was stolen on an overnight bus travelling between La Paz and Sucre, several people immediately attributed the theft to Peruvians.

28. The use of stylised diablada dress by Peru's entrant for Miss Universe 2009 also incited anger from Bolivians, including insistence that she should be disqualified for plagiarising Bolivian culture (see also Cordova 2009).

29. Youtube: Diablada Peruana 1,000% Peruana. Available from www.youtube.com/watch?v=5raRzefOY9s (accessed 16 July 2009). A few months later this clip's title was changed to Diablada 100% peruana, como el pisco (‘Diablada 100% Peruvian, like pisco’ [a Peruvian brandy]).

30. This example also highlights the Internet's potential for inflaming nationalist hostilities; its relative anonymity enables the exchange of offensive language that would probably be avoided in face-to-face encounters.

31. Other forms of illicit production, such as the faking or counterfeiting of global brands of clothing, are widespread in Bolivia. But low self-esteem for national manufacturing is again evident in the way that producers attach counterfeit global brand names to products for the Bolivian and Brazilian markets, and lament that consumers would reject their high-quality products if sold under their own label (Kothari and Laurie 2004, 226).

32. The small clear plastic bags (costing around 0.001Bs each) in which each pirated disc is placed with its printed colour lámina were said to be sourced in the same way.

33. See CIA The World Factbook. Available from www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html (accessed 10 December 2009).

34. Peru's relative economic supremacy may now be on the wane given that Bolivia has weathered the 2008–09 global financial crisis better than Peru or any other Latin American country. With estimated growth in GDP of 6.1% in 2008 and 4.0% 2009, the Bolivian economy has in fact survived the global economic downturn better than many any other parts of the world (Weisbrot, Ray, and Johnston 2009, 7).

35. Economic incentives remain for some vendors to make the journey to Desaguadero as VCD discs produced in La Paz with good quality colour printed láminas wholesale at around 1.70Bs, compared with as little as 1.10Bs in Desaguadero. Jordán (2008) also gives details of a vendor family in El Alto (La Paz) who abandoned selling children's shoes for the more lucrative business of marketing pirated music discs. Initially the family burnt their own discs but then, as the costs were identical and it saved time and effort, they opted for weekly visits to Desaguadero's Tuesday market. Although this contradicts the testimonies of my own consultants, according to Jórdan the number of traders travelling to Desaguadero continues to grow.

36. However, in these places it was also typical to market three Peru-derived pirated VCDs in small plastic bags for 10Bs.

37. Morcom (2008, 268–89) highlights some of the problems with self-distribution, a theme I will consider elsewhere as part of a discussion of strategies to combat piracy.

38. This, in turn, reflects how patterns of consumption underscore class and ethnic hierarchies.

39. For example, in ‘Music Piracy: Ten Inconvenient Truths’ the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) asserts: ‘Piracy is not caused by poverty. Professor Zhang of Nanjing University found the Chinese citizens who bought pirate products were mainly middle or higher income earners’. IFPI Press Office, London, 31 May 2007. Available from www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20070531.html [accessed: 23 July 2008].

40. The CIA World Factbook. Available from www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bl.html (accessed 10 August 2009).

41. Celebrated as an alternative music industry model, where copyright becomes irrelevant, the techno brega phenomenon consists of (‘pirate’) street vendors copying and selling thousands of low-priced CDs to promote massive weekend ‘sound system’ parties at which artists and sound system owners generate considerable income (Bollier 2006; Hegg 2007). Although in many respects attractive, this model is clearly likely to be more effective and beneficial for some genres, artists and contexts than for others; for example, it provides no income stream for composers.

42. However, Mertha (2005, 226) observes that although China's local-level bureaucracy was ineffective at protecting the International Property Rights (IPR) interests of Hollywood and Microsoft, for more immediate and present priorities, such as population control or the 1983 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak, it could be very efficient.

43. See for example Kathryn Ledebur, ‘Obama's Bolivia ATPDEA Decision: Blast from the Past or Wave of the Future?’, Andean Information Network, 11 August 2009. Available from http://ain-bolivia.org (accessed 10 September 2009).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Henry Stobart

Henry Stobart is Senior Lecturer in the Music Department of Royal Holloway, University of London. He has published widely on the music of the Bolivian Andes. His former work primarily focused on rural indigenous perspectives, but more recent research stresses wider cultural politics and the role of new digital technologies. His books include the monograph Music and the Poetics of Production in the Bolivian Andes (Ashgate, 2006) and several edited volumes: The New (Ethno)musicologies (Scarecrow, 2008), Knowledge and Learning in the Andes: Ethnographic Perspectives (co-edited with Rosaleen Howard; Liverpool University Press, 2002), and Sound (co-edited with Patricia Kruth; Cambridge University Press, 2000)