Unemployed people in South Africa have resorted to piracy as a way of living, despite the fact that it is considered to be an illegal activity. Piracy has become such a norm in South Africa, so much so that consumers have forgotten what the inside of a music store looks like. Argument being, why should one spend R100 on an original album when you can get an exact copy on the street for R10 with a massive saving of R90 which you can use to put food on the table?
Local artists such as Rebecca Malope, Joyous Celebration, and Zahara just to name a few, are said to be the most pirated artists. According to (google), South African artists lose an estimated R500 million each year due to piracy. This has made recording for these artists very unpleasant because they do not reap the benefits of their own fruits.
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| Selling like "hot bread" on the streets.source |
The Department of Trade and Industry has taken a stand along with artists in an effort to fight piracy. The campaign aims to create public awareness on how buying pirated Compact Discs (cd) affects the economy and how it has led the artists well into poverty. To combat the situation, artists have taken to the streets of Johannesburg led by poet and chairperson of the Anti-piracy campaign titled “Shoot the Pirate”, Mzwakhe Mbuli, to confront the street vendors and confiscate the fake CDs. Mzwakhe said that “enough is enough and that they will fight violence with violence” to stop piracy.
Street vendors need to understand that this action is not to take food away from them, but to save the country`s economy which in the long run will be beneficial to them. It will assist in the creation of jobs and decrease the rate of retrenchments.
Could this be the end of our music industry or is it simply a call for government to create more jobs?
I don't think this will be the end of the music industry, not in a million years. This is just simply a call for the government to do something about it.
ReplyDeleteAnd another thing, this thing is not so difficult. The police should just get rid of the pirated cd's(they are always patroling on the streets, so the best thing they can do is to just confiscate all those cd's the vendors are selling,simple like that)!
ReplyDeleteaccording to poet and leader of the anti-piracy campaign"KILL THE PIRATE" Mzwakhe Mbuli he feels that the government is not doing enough to help with the situation especiall the police. he says that the police are also seen purchasing the pirated goods in their uniform, so in a way the police are also condoning this criminal act
ReplyDeleteTrue that, so its just one hell of a mess.
ReplyDeletelets be honest, i`m a student and thats my excuse of buying pirated albums. Buy cheap and use the change to get to school.
ReplyDeleteI THINK PIRACY CAN END IF EVERYONE CON BE JUST BE FAITHFUL TO HIM/HER SLF
ReplyDeleteyoung and free, `i` disagree. piracy will only end when everybody is employed,until then its evry man for himself
ReplyDeleteThe fact remains that no matter how hard people work towards doing something the right way there will always be that few who will do the opposite of that.Also that the government is as much to blame for this because they not trying to find ways to create more job oppertunities, by letting these people use their skills towards something more constructive and legal. It wont really solve all of the problems but it is a start.But to every bad thing there is a good thing piracy also prevents global warming because all the shipping that is done to inport and export all those things has an effect on the enviroment so as illegal as piracy can be it enviromentally friendly.
ReplyDeleteafter so campigns to stop privacy without any success it is becoming worse what popsssible masures do you think we need to take to stop this because it has gone far already
ReplyDeletepiracy is a serious problem especially with this technology, that improves every year. For the government to be able to deal with piracy their servants must be technically literate or equiped and that they should fully lias with the music industries of the country
ReplyDeleteclive the creation of jobs will do the trick, because these people are hungry thats why they do not care whose toes they step on in order to get food. But for people to get jobs they need skills and some facilities that offer skill training are not for free, so again we are back to square one, government and private sectors need to come up with more scholarship programmes to assist unemployed people
ReplyDeletechellas it is also up to the community as a whole to support each other and not only rely on the government to take the blame. If you see your neighbour's child sitting at home after matric due to lack of funds and you have the money to take him or her to school, why don't you offer to pay for him and get him off the street to study further and be able to contribute to the country's fight against unemployment.
ReplyDeletedo u know how many people are are actually selling these pirated cd? and when are these jobs gone be created we need to stop it now or south africa is dead
ReplyDeleteI just think they should try to create a software that wont allow to make copies of artist original work without a COPYRIGHT from the owner and/or music campanies. Because alot of money was waisted on ad's and campaigns sending messages of ending pirecy.
ReplyDeletei agree with kearams, am gonna see what to say here concerning what you have just written and make my comment.
ReplyDeleteU coming good Girl!!!
ReplyDelete