Via qian: rivkat reviews a Social Science Research Council report about Media Piracy in Emerging Economies:

The authors conclude that piracy is largely a problem of a globalized Euro-American entertainment/industrial complex that has successfully generated demand for its products but unsuccessfully served that demand at prices people in other countries can pay, largely from refusal to price copies so they’d take roughly the same amount of purchasing power in poor nations. One example: converting prices as a percentage of per capita income, a Dark Knight DVD sold in India would cost $663 in the US; A Beautiful Mind would cost $421.

Lots of neat little details by country (I love the fact that Microsoft had to issue a blanket free license to Russians, because the Russian government was using software piracy as an excuse to arrest political opponents). The full report is here, and costs 8$ to access if you’re a member of an affluent country (it’s free otherwise). Definitely sounds like interesting reading: as Qian says, it’s interesting (though not surprising as far as I’m concerned), and I also found myself wishing we’d had this to link to at the time of the ebook piracy debate.