Brazil's piracy debate rages as Lula caught with illegal DVD

In Brazil, about half of all movies sold on DVD format are pirated copies. They're found everywhere - on street corners, market stalls and even on President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government jet.

The president's office apologized this week after a newspaper report that Mr. da Silva watched a copy of 2 Filhos de Francisco, the nation's No. 1 grossing movie, en route to Brasilia from Moscow on Oct. 18. The film, directed by Brazilian Breno Silveira and released in August, hasn't come out on DVD.

"What can we say, except that it is really most regrettable," Leonardo Monteiro de Barros, a co-partner at Conspiracao Filmes, one of the companies that produced the movie, said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. "Piracy is a very serious problem in Brazil."

Latin America's largest economy is a haven for illegal copies of everything from drugs to music. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said 54 per cent of music sold in Brazil is done so illegally.

Newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo on Nov. 11 detailed Brazil's role as a piracy capital in a half-page spread on the front page of its business section. A cartoon on the opinion page played on Mr. da Silva himself being a fake.

The President reprimanded the staff member who brought the film on the plane, said a spokesman in his office in Brasilia.

The government should give tax breaks to reduce the price of DVDs in the country to curb demand for counterfeit copies, said Hilton Kauffmann, a partner at Raccord Producoes, an independent film production company in Rio de Janeiro. Producers get only 5 reais ($2.70) of a DVD that costs 40 reais. The rest of the money goes to the government and distributors.