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Here in Peru, vendors sell pirated, photocopied books for very little money - and people do indeed buy these books off the street. In fact, there are millions of poor people in Peru and a deal of educated people as well. Generally, only the educated have the leisure time to read, and it is this percentage of people who BUY the books from the economically poor vendors.
So:
It is the educated of Peru who buy the majority of books.
The same is true for the pirated films made and sold here.
On almost any given corner, I can find vendors selling movies for s./3.00 soles (almost $1.00 USD). It's so much cheaper to buy a pirated copy of a book or film than it is to buy the legitimate product. I do not advocate this; I'm merely stating a fact based upon experiential knowledge from living here.
I want to think that education is the key, because I am an educator and believe that in education lies the key to a society's salvation.
I don't know what the answer is to DRM - and I have to be honest as well and state that at this point, I don't think DRM-free eooks is the answer --; however, I think stealing digital products is endemic to our society, but more so in some cultures than in others.
I'm open to educating my views about DRM on ebooks and certainly will re-examine my views constantly on this subject.
Don
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