Originally posted by: sean wookie
What is R$45.00 equal to in american dollars?

According to Google, US$19.72.

But the problem is, this is a country where famine is a real problem, where 60% of the people live with US$100 dollars a month or less. Also, you can find a chinese or russian made bootleg easily for US$5.00, I spoted one for ROTS two days before the movied opened! People here don't tend to think that piracy is wrong because it's a crime with no victims, at least no real, tangible victims, they think they are saving R$40.00 and making the billionaire movie industry a bit poor. This mentality is slowly changing, though. The videogame industry is slowly pushing its way to get less taxes and more acceptance between consumers who reject pirate products (such as myself), and the sales of DVDs has been waaaay higher than VHS sale (and back on the VHS era, movie piracy was absolutely non-existent here).

Blaming the piracy for the downfall of the movie business (or, at least, for the lack of profit they actually expected) is totally wrong. There are three main factors involved in this: Hollywood ONLY produces crap, good films are badly distributed on porpouse, and the internet is taking audiences away, NOT through piracy, but because people prefer stay at home and play on their computers and chat and watch dvds instead of going to the movie theater.