When I lived in the UAE, back in the early 90s, there was a company that produced and sold copies of the latest music and most movies on cassette and vhs (tho many movies were banned from sale there based on certain content). You found them in any shop that sold music or movies, and they sold for a fraction of the cost of the original CDs and cassettes. I never saw vinyl records there, originals or bootlegs. Maybe the heat was a factor in that, who knows. CDs and legit cassettes were expensive, at around $50 to $100 each, but they were usually available for sale right alongside the bootleg cassettes that you could buy for pennies on the dollar. I didn't realize at the time that the reason these cassettes were so cheap was because they were unlicensed copies of the original recordings and the two companies that were running the show were making a fortune doing it because they operated outside of international copyright laws. The UAE, at least at that time, had no copyright laws in place, and didn't honor any laws from anywhere else, so as long as the content didn't violate their religious laws, anyone could copy anything and sell it freely. I don't know how all of that works in the UAE today, as I left there over 20 years ago. I remember hearing something a while back about a big lawsuit that finally shut them down but I can't find any details on it at the moment.

Here in the US, you can usually go to any flea market and find vendors selling bootleg copies of movies and music all day long. They get run off eventually, some jailed, just to be replaced by a half dozen others doing the same thing. It's pretty common, and once in a while there will be a news clip on another ring of bootleggers getting busted. It doesn't matter what format the original content comes on, if it can be recorded it can be bootlegged. Vinyl is no different. And bootlegs always sell for a fraction of the original, and these days it can be pretty difficult for the average person to tell the difference in sound or picture quality with all the software that's available to reproduce it with. 

Back in 2011 or 2012 there was a push to make it illegal to resell anything you buy. Basically, once you bought something from the original manufacturer, the license would be non-transferable. Would not matter what it was, from stereos to socks. Once you buy it it's yours. Selling it would be illegal. This would shut down flea markets and 2nd-hand shops across the country and even cause problems with retailers who would have to change the way they buy from distributors.  

Here's one article on it. The topic never got much media attention and I haven't googled enough to know if the SC ever ruled one way or the other on it.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/your-right-to-resell-your-own-stuff-is-in-peril-2012-10-04

I'm not in favor of this kind of overreaching. I am in favor of companies and artists having more control over who uses their stuff. And whatever guy that was mentioned in an earlier post claiming that artists just need to find a different way of making a living needs a good punch in the esophagus. And he needs to learn that value is created entirely by supply and demand. The more abundant and easily obtainable something is, the less value it has. 

The thing is tho, it doesn't matter if something is tangible or digital, if it exists it can be bootlegged. Obviously digital content is much easier to pirate than tangible goods as there is no cost to the pirate in doing so. What I've never understood is the ass-hats that buy the content with their own money and then turn around and distribute copies of it freely on pirate sites. I guess it makes them feel like they're being robin hoods or somethin. Some pirating does result in future sales, as some people will download something, like a game for example, to see if they like it and then go buy it if they do. There is always a risk with pirating software as you never know when that next game is going to fry your PC. Personally I'm in favor of companies working in some form of fail-safe that does exactly that once the game or software realizes it's been cracked. Ah. Now you need a new mother board, which is much more expensive than the $50 or so you would have spent had you bought a legal license. So far the closest I've seen them get with that is when games only let the player reach a certain point until they encounter some beast that's impossible to get passed. At least that's something. I hate thieves. 

As it stands, the software companies that have gone to subscription models have made it much more difficult to pirate their software, and have made it more affordable for people to use their software, so that is a plus, and it shows that subscription models are making a difference, tho probably not much of one. It would be nice if digital content artists could come up with a way of doing the same. Install managers could check the account against their store and if the license for that content doesn't exist, the content doesn't function. But I guess that's too much to ask.