Source: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/-depth/07/08/11/bye-bye-pirated-dvds-ph
The Optical Media Board (OMB) is intensifying its anti-piracy drive following the total ban on pirated DVDs starting in Quiapo, then Central Luzon and the entire country. The Philippines was taken off the out-of-cycle review of the US piracy watch list. China, Russia, Malaysia, and India are now topping the software piracy list. China, which is the biggest producer of pirated DVDs, ships items to the Philippines via the country's backdoor, Zamboanga. Some Philippine provinces, like General Santos, currently have ordinances against the sale and pirated DVDs. OMB credit the agency's successful anti-piracy campaign to using various strategies -- including keeping an open dialogue with vendors of pirated DVD's, and closer cooperation with local government officials. They said they are looking at providing alternative livelihood to vendors to end the illegal trade.OMB admitted that the agency's P30-million annual budget, as well as manpower, are not enough. But they said the feedback they're getting is encouraging. Despite intensified government efforts to confiscate pirated discs, the software and film industries are said to have lost an estimated P15 billion last year due to piracy. The Motion Picture Anti-Film Piracy Council said half of the film industry's revenues, or about P3 billion, are lost to piracy every year.
Comment:
I don't think these is a win-win situation for everybody. Yes, piracy though is a crime but it also a source of living for the pirate vendors. The government say they will provide livelihoods for those vendors, but I really doubt that. Our government couldn't even provide jobs for those highly-skilled workers and still unemployment is very evident. The rate of piracy is increasing and now the stakes are especially high for entertainment companies as they sell more of their products online in the form of digital songs, movies and other intellectual property. The rates of people engaged in piracy are getting higher. Especially in the Philippines, I don't think anyone has never bought a pirated DVD. Pirated movies, music, games and other form of downloadable contents can easily be downloaded through internet and mostly teens do this.
Honestly, as a consumer I really would engage myself in piracy. I could save money from buying cheap pirated goods and used that saved money for buying another commodity. But if I were a music artist, producer of a film or a software programmer I would be really be against it for I could have earned more if it weren't for the pirated goods. It might be a benefit or a loss, depending on the position of the person. If piracy however is really stopped people would be more likely to watch movies and buy original copies. The only establishment highly profiting from this are those music stores, movie theaters and malls. Those small vendors will have to find an another livelihood which is very hard to find. For example, person A stopped selling pirated movies, then he decides to sell kwek-kwek, but there is another vendor selling the same good so person A might earn small amount of money or might not even. People have a lot of demands, including pirated goods that are cheaper compared to authentic ones. So person A will most likely again will sell pirated movies to satisfy the demand of the consumers and he might even earn a bigger amount of money.
Piracy is seen as always a loss to the economy but I don’t think it purely is a loss for the economy. For example, let's say there is a loss of P3 billion in entertainment due to downloading or consuming illegal goods, but people end up spending that P3 billion on buying mobile phones, computers and games sets, which leads to P10 billion in job creation in the computer/software/consumer electronics field. So piracy contributes to the loss in the music, movies and software industry, but it might have a benefit on other industries.
