GUADALAJARA - The modern-day tale is not quite as simple or swashbuckling as the chronicles of, say, Captain Blood or Robin Hood.
When police stormed the small Colonia Providencia home of the man dubbed as “Mario el Pirata” (or “Don Corrupto”) last week, there were no chains, no gentle-bred maidens weeping over their lover’s fate, no swordfights and daring escapes – just a lot of bootleg videos and the neighborhood’s curious silence.
In his own way, the successful Mexican film buccaneer is as mysterious a figure as his folk rebel counterparts of yore. Rumor around the affluent Providencia neighborhood of Guadalajara has it that Mario Lopez Ramirez started his semi-clandestine business after his wife was diagnosed with cancer. He needed a reliable source of income that could allow him to stay at home and care for her, some say. Depending on who one asks, he has been in business, at the same location, for anywhere from two to 13 years and lived alone.
He was widely known to his neighbors as a dependable, courteous, non-violent purveyor of all manner of films (except black and white), high of quality and low of price: anywhere from 30 pesos for individual DVD movies (with menu and extras) to 90 pesos for a TV series. Nobody in the neighborhood, say his clients, would have turned him in, though all knew that he ran an illegal business.
The facts are more banal. Apparently, after a complaint from local video companies, a judge issued a warrant based on copyright and intellectual property violations. Last Wednesday evening, a group of armed police agents arrived at Lopez Ramirez’ home at Labrador 1573 and confiscated about 6,500 film DVDs, 600 blank disks, eight burners, 15 taping devices, and a computer system hacking into satellite pay-per-view channels. Lopez Ramirez now faces a hefty fine and perhaps jail time.
Regular government raids against establishments like Lopez Ramirez’ and publicity campaigns against bootleg video and music content are failing in Mexico (and most of the world). Put one vendor out of business and confiscate wares, and two others mushroom in their place, with the original unfortunate businessman quickly cutting his losses and starting over. That may be in part because Mario el Pirata and those of his ilk are considered, if not folk heroes, at least a convenient and widely-accepted way to dodge a system that places full-price entertainment out of the reach of many ordinary consumers around the world.
In Guadalajara, Jalisco’s 50-some-peso minimum daily wage is enough to buy one adult non-matinee cinema ticket or about one-third or one-quarter of a full-price Disney video for the kiddies.
Then again, as Lopez Ramirez’ neighbors noted in the pages of local Spanish-language newspapers, most of Mario el Pirata’s clients regularly pulled into his driveway in luxury vehicles and didn’t seem to be limping along on a minimum wage.
What then is Mario el Pirata? A practical, business-minded Robin Hood or just your average hood? In a recent article, a reporter from local daily Publico argued it seemed strange that police arrived en masse on Wednesday night to face one small-time, non-violent, established fixture of video piracy in an affluent neighborhood. But Don Corrupto is the natural expression of a society thoroughly at ease on the edge of legality and beyond. Perhaps, from a law enforcement perspective, the shadowy (and not so shadowy) figures of Mexico’s grey market are more terrifying than any clearly monstrous arch-villain. It’s tough not to wonder these days whether the Don Corruptos of the world outnumber the ranks of the Dudley Do-Rights.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
