Selling to survive on Madrid's streets

Ramo said a mantero makes between 15 and 20 euros a day. He said they acquire CDs and DVDs at 1 euro a piece and sell them for 2.5 euros.

“We don’t like working in top manta. We’re carpenters, mechanics, construction workers, but when people want to hire us, they can’t, because we don’t have papers. We can’t just stay here with our arms folded,” he said. He and many of his colleagues decided to organize in the Association of Undocumented People, whose manifesto asks, “Is it so bad to sell CDs in the street in order to survive? Is it really worth sending someone to jail?”

The Spanish music and film sectors have been hurting of late. The recording industry, worth 600 million euros in 2001, dropped to 225 million euros in 2008, according to Promusicae, an association of music producers. FAP, a federation for film intellectual property, says only 6 percent of films in Spanish homes are legal.

The sectors blame their losses on the Internet for illegal downloads, which boomed after 2005 when downloading software became widespread. This has had disastrous consequences, said Antonio Rojas, spokesman for SGAE, an organization defending royalty rights for artists. He said companies are shutting down, jobs are being destroyed and tax fraud is being committed as a result. The number of illegal downloads grows exponentially every year: 132 million movies in 2006, 350 million in 2008; 500 million songs in 2006, 2.5 billion in 2008, according to data provided by FAP and SGAE.

FAP’s president, Jose Manuel Tourne, estimates top manta costs the film industry about 138 million euros a year. Less than 7 percent of illegal movies are sold on top manta — the rest are illegal downloads. The same imbalance occurs with music, with top manta illegal music sales accounting for a “minimal” 4 percent, SGAE said.

Antonio Guisasola, Promusicae president, thinks the campaign’s message is wrong. If it is a matter of supporting immigrants who cannot work, he said, jobs are the problem that needs solving. “Campaign supporters say manteros do not have any other way to make a living because they’re illegal. Then, what’s the next step? Lessening the sentence for stealing if one is illegal because he has no other way to make it?” he asked.

Romo, for his part, said, “We’re not delinquents, we don’t want to harm anybody. We prefer top manta selling to stealing."

Some Spanish artists support the current law. But there are others, like musician Joaquin Sabina and film director Javier Corcuera, who have signed a manifesto defending the protection of intellectual property rights with criminal punishments in the most serious cases but also backing the campaign, in view of the “scant gravity” of the top manta and “the social and personal circumstances” of the manteros.

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