This past summer I traveled to Mexico for a family trip. I traveled to Mexico City, distrito federal, and also to Acapulco a great beach in the state of Guerrero. While on my visit I saw many things and now relating to the subject at hand I ran into several stand of pirated Cd's. In Mexico city just around the corner from my grandmothers house there was a stand next to the marketplace. It was very big, the guy had all types of music from a famous Spanish rock group named Mana, to the latest in hip hop and Spanish pop new releases. Well the stand wasn't what made a big impression on me it was the price of the Cd's. The Cd's were sold for only 15 pesos, this comes out to be about a dollar and fifty cents. Here in the states I have never seen such cheap Cd's. Now I must admit I bought several Cd's just about ten dollars worth of them. I played them and to my surprise they were great, one of them had not even been released for sale in the stores! So later that week when I had already gone to Acapulco we went to a mall in the center of the strip. There at the mall there was a store called Mix Up. Mix Up is a version of a tower records. The have all the Cd's there, now the prices were any where from 150 pesos to 250 pesos, that's any where from fifteen to twenty dollars. There were some on sale for just 100 pesos, ten dollars but I must admit they were not good. My mother purchased two Cd's there they included here favorite songs while growing up so she thought it was worth the forty dollars she paid. I guess memories are worth paying the price but I was just as happy with all the Cd's I had purchased earlier that week for a fraction of the price. Now we were tourist we probably could afford buying authentic Cd's from stores such as this mix up store, now for the locals that are of the working class that would be impossible. In Mexico the minimum wage is about 50 pesos a day! That is five dollars a day, here in California we make more that that in an hour. For the working class there that illegal stand selling the Cd's are essential. That way they are able to own at least some Cd's. The last thing on the peoples minds is that they are illegally buying music and cheating artist and record companies of money. They are just worried of being able to afford it. Sure there are people that can afford going to the Mix Up and have far better jobs. The way I viewed it there was that the people buy Cd's according to their budget, those who can't afford authentic Cd's go for the other Cd's. Now here in the states I think it is a question of convenience, if we could get away with buying something cheaper or getting it for free does it make it okay?
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Interesting experience. Some food for thought.
Remember, though, you still need to address the questions on the handout from the last class.
Small formatting thing: you have my name used as a category title. Looks a little odd. Think of your own category titles -- "Blogs I like" or "Media links" or whatever; then build your list of links under them. Your categories and the lists under them should grow and evolve as you continue to blog.
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