The Phenomenon of VCD/DVD Piracy in the Philippines: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

When we look at the different nations and cultures that thrive on our world today, we see that they all have laws which they impose upon their citizens to be able to build a better society. Certain laws, particularly those forbidding killing or stealing from another person, have found their way into almost all societies and could be referred to as almost universal laws that our species has imposed upon itself. Whether these laws came about because of the religious text of the culture involved such as the ten commandments of the, Christian Bible and Jewish Torah, or whether they c came from the plain common sense of the culture involved these"laws are always present. They are also generally followed as they are supposedly for the common good. There have been instances in the past however when nations have disregarded their own·laws for the benefit of the majority. Such as in World War 2 when the United States forced certain companies in their country to g1ve up their secret formulas for producing aluminum so that the other companies in the nation could produce more for the war effort, an act that was in violation of private property laws. Another instance is when the same nation used atomic technology in the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in an attempt to avoid the further bloodshed of a ground invasion. While at the time the laws were broken, the acts were controversial, due to the overall positive effects of the violation of the laws they were in the long run forgotten. This now brings us to the concept of piracy. Piracy as will be shown later in the study is in essence stealing. It is taking a process, product, or idea which another person has produced and making it your own without monetary or any other type of compensation. The participants in the process may find ways to sneak around the laws and say that legally what they are doing is not piracy, such as the "file sharing" concept of Lime wire or Bit torrent, but at the end of the day although no laws were actually broken the effect is the same. The ideas were still stolen. As we can see in our nation's laws stealing is wrong and that is why the government is punishing the pirates with raids, fines, and sometimes imprisonment. However we also see that at times it is necessary for a given nation to ignore its own laws, even if for a short time, for a greater benefit in the long run. That is why we must study if_ piracy would be beneficial or not to our country. lfit is then maybe we should just ignore these vendors, if not then maybe we should continue with our actions. As we can see in the previous paragraph piracy is essentially stealing and is obviously against the law which is why the extent of the spread of this phenomenon also needs to be studied. Finding out why people are willing to defy this law so blatantly and still follow the others could lead us to a deeper understanding as to the nature of our people.