South American Music Downloads

There is some interesting news coming out of Argentina and Brazil regarding music downloads. In Argentina, a wireless carrier has just begun selling song downloads wirelessly and on their website. In Brazil, a website called Discografa was taken down because it had over 1 million users illegally sharing music files.

But here is the really fascinating thing about all of this. Discografa is taken down in Brazil through a partnership of Google Brazil, Brazil’s Cinema and Music Anti Piracy Organization (APCM), and Brazil’s IFPI’s chapter (ABPD). Google Brazil was involved because they are the owner of Orkut, which is a social networking site popular in Brazil that allowed users to access the Discografa free downloads. Google’s main worry about this was the potential negative impact it would have on social networking. Apparently, Discografa is one of the most popular music sharing sites in Latin America.

So, in Argentina, a new site, personalmusica.com, comes along and sells tracks for a relatively high price. The tracks will sell for 5 pesos each (US$1.41). This is quite a bit higher than the $0.79 price in the USA on Amazon.com or the $0.99 found on iTunes. I’ll be curious to see if Argentinian consumers are willing to drop that kind of money for a single track.

So, how do these two stories tie together? Well, the removal of Discografa from the web will not stop people from sharing music and illegally downloading. It might cause a slight disruption, especially since it was so tied in to social networking, but people will find other ways. They are not going to all of a sudden pay $1.41 per song when they are accustomed to getting them free. I’m not suggesting that Argentinian wireless carrier Personal give away tracks for free on their phones, but I don’t expect sales to be very big.

Stay tuned,
Erik
erikrostad.com