Music CDs for $1?! It's Mexico. (International).

Mexican authorities have increased raids in the neighborhood of Tepito, a center of criminal activity in Mexico City. They emerge not with drug traffickers, but with thousands of CDs of pirated music. Still, it's barely making a dent.

Last year, Mexico's music stores sold 57 million legal CDs, while the country's street vendors sold an estimated 73 million illegally copied ones for about $1 each. Mexico is an extreme example of practices spreading throughout Latin America, where, in almost every nation, pirated discs outsell legal ones.

Record companies, music stores, and musicians are losing money fast. Yet record executives cannot afford to stop their search for new Latin artists, whose popularity continues to rise in the U.S. Mexico's most beloved artists, including Paulina Rubio and Los Tigres del Norte, now rely on U.S. sales to make money.

Pirated music is a sensitive subject for the millions of Mexicans who survive on the minimum wage of $5 a day or less. Buying a legal disc is beyond their reach. "I know it's illegal and hurts young musicians," says Blanca Flores, contemplating a CD purchase from a Tepito street vendor. "But we want to listen to music, too."