I would like to talk about the subversive nature of the entertainment market and pirate media distribution in Brasil. Through navigating Jenkings Convergence culture blog I was thrilled by the fact that he presented an opening talk on transmedia in Rio, in 2010. In his blog he recognizes the singularities of the Brazilian market toward the mass media decentralized culture, analyzing the pirate sector of movies, and the income generated to informal and formal distributors, according to statistic data, the pirate distribution of Brazilian movies generates a fortune on sold copies, but in the contrary of what others might think; instead of this fact being negative it creates the opposite effect. The thousands of DVD copies sold even before the movie is launched in the theaters, generates a thrilling movement to consume the product. Publicity is generated by consumers through many different channels and it allows the films producers to save money on advertising. Data showed that when the movie is launched in the theaters, the public who watched the movie in low quality copy is compelled to watch the movie again. This phenomena guaranteed the success of the polemic documentary “Tropa de Elite”, that had a copy stolen before it was launched formally.
The pirate market in Brasil is strong and has many reasons to be so prolific. The same happens to the music industries that in Brasil generates a huge informal economy. By the time I participated on a seminar about communication, participatory culture and transmedia (International Seminar: The Constitution of the Common. Vitoria/ES, Brasil), I started to understand the subversive artistic form that starts at the art production level and goes through alternate routes of distributing and commercialization. The informal markets are spread around big cities as if they were legally accepted. They generate a huge portion of informal jobs and turn out accessible art products that otherwise wouldn’t be consumed by the population at large. The same is applied to computer software that might be purchased below market value anywhere in downtown Rio or Sao Paulo. This allows people to produce a series of aesthetical values and media that otherwise would have been available only to those who could afford the higher prices. The results are a myriad of graphic designs, videos, music, that represent innumerous types of cultures. Even traditional techniques of art forms have been changed through technology in Brasil among a population who does not have many accesses to technology. They always make their way through, to continuously create and follow the new trends, but most importantly, generating new trends. Consequently, more and more peripheral and marginalized groups have been creating their own aesthetical values and influencing middle class groups that before had the ownership and access to media. This represents a huge shift of values and a more diverse and democratic reality than it was decades ago.