Piracy and Intellectual Property in Latin America

<p><em>Piracy and Intellectual Property in Latin America</em> is the first sustained effort to present an alternative framework for understanding piracy and contemporary challenges to global discourses on intellectual property (IP) in the Americas.</p><p>While piracy might just look like theft and derivative reproduction from the perspective of many right-holders the contributors to this volume go beyond this economic-driven logic and show how practices of copying are in fact practices of reinvention that reflect the rich social networks and forms of creativity authorship commerce and consumption that characterize informal economies. From a perspective informed by contemporary scenarios in Mexico Brazil Chile Argentina Peru Guatemala and the United States they engage in a discussion of alternatives that—predicated on the importance of protecting culture—allow for other ways of conceiving prosperity at local national regional and global levels. Examples discussed include video games clothing trinkets music film TV and books.</p><p>Designed to help understand the broader implications of IP and piracy for the field of Latin American studies this book will be a major contribution to Global South studies as well as to the growing bibliography on globalization informal markets and piracy.</p>