Cultural Industries, Digital Divide and Rural Development: The Case of Digital Piracy in Oaxaca, Mexico

Abstract

"In rural Oaxaca the commerce of pirate cultural goods (e.g. music, cinema, books, software) is an entrepreneurial activity. Off-line piracy is very often the only media for accessing goods from cultural industries. Applying the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework we analyses copyright piracy in rural settings as an action arena. We used a war of attrition game theory model to explain why intellectual property rights are not enforced in rural communities, analyzing different levels of interaction and rules in use from the global to the very local. We propose new institutional arrangement to legalize the copy and transmission of cultural goods for education and rural development. Some interesting insights arrived regarding the cost of the 'last mile' in the diffusion of cultural goods and ICT's infrastructure."