CD piracy has taken Venezuela by storm!
CD piracy has become a real problem over the last two years for every recording company established here. Last week, BMG Records closed operations, besides bad management and low sales, some executives stated that their German headquarters had lost interest in this market. The BMG catalog will be distributed by Lideres, the former Rodven Record company. This same week, Sony Music continued its work force reduction which started last year.
Just last November, the Association of Phonographic Companies, which includes WEA, SONY, BMG, EMI and Universal, conducted a press conference regarding this problem. They announced that the piracy figures in Venezuela for that time frame was averaging about 62%. Now they insist they were increased by 20% more. At the same time the association announced measures for combating this problem, the first was the airing of a radio and TV commercial asking consumers not to buy illegal goods; the second, to get the President’s attention on this matter through a written letter. This was not possible since the government was very busy with December’s elections and the rain tragedy. Another problem is that authorities don’t see this problem as a national priority, and technology has helped to expand this since anybody can install the proper hardware parts to the home PC and make copies of recording media and computer software as well. That’s the way people begin, making copies for household use and immediately offering the service to friends. But that’s a little piece of the cake. Its been said that illegal CDs are coming from Colombia, China and Mexico. To make matters worse some of these imports include really good duplications of the cover art. In Caracas -the Capitol- the problem remains among the street vendors who sell CDs at half the official price, but the problem has gone beyond anyone’s control in other states, where at a traffic light, a gas station and even a record store, illegal CDs have taken the space of the original ones.
Even though there is a lack of control regarding this problem, record company executives say they won’t let the pirates take over the market.
*** Here are two events that will keep Salseros busy over the next week or so. This 14th El Poliedro will host the “Noches de Nueva York” series whose bill includes: Richie Ray & Bobby Cruz, Junior González, Pete Conde Rodríguez, Henry Fiol, Justo Betancourt, and Ismael Miranda. Local acts haven’t been announced as of yet.
Later on the 23rd, at Parque Naciones Unidas Roberto Roena, Willie González, Nino Segarra, Roberto Lugo, Adalberto Santiago, and Venezuelan Willmer Cobos will all perform. We’ll be there!
That’s all from Venezuela.
To know more about the Venezuelan Latin music scene, visit: www.seritel.es/salpiquelatino, Venezuela’s first Latin music site.