How Piracy Helps the Movie Industry

Piracy is in vogue in most developing countries. Even developed countries have their own versions of piracy one way or another. In whatever form it takes, piracy is actually helping the movie and entertainment industry. Even if law enforcers and the movie industry will work it out and confiscate pirated DVD’s of movies and TV shows, piracy is here to stay. Ironically, piracy itself is helping the movie industry. Philippine movies are actually being distributed through DVD piracy.

Forms of Piracy

Different forms of piracy abound. The most common perhaps in the Philippines are the pirated DVD’s and CD’s. Each pirated DVD may be bought for less than P50 (USD 1.50) or three for P100. You just have to know where to buy. In most wet markets and even some “tiangge” malls, these pirated DVD’s may be had. Although piracy hurts Philippine Cinema, it also provides some much needed help.

Piracy also abounds when you download movies without paying for them. These can easily be done through peer-to-peer software like Limewire. You share your own copies of movies online and you can also download from the files of other people in your network. Convenient and free! You just have to wait for several hours or days depending on the speed of your internet connection.

It may seem harmless but if you are copying the mpeg file of a rented or bought DVD or CD, you are engaged in piracy. When you make copies of the file you ripped and give it out to your friends or sell them, that may also be piracy. I remember the first Imago album where they talked about how they are being deprived of thousands of pesos with every “illegal” copy their listeners made.

If you also watched a movie at SM Cinemas or any of the movie houses in Manila and recorded bits and pieces of the movie in your digital camera or in your cellphone, that is also a form of piracy.

Ironically, the technologies and gadgets that come out contribute to the proliferation of piracy. Shouldn’t there be a safety measure somewhere to prevent people from pirating digital media?

Piracy is Here to Stay

Piracy has become a salient feature of Philippine society and no doubt of both developing and developed countries. Movie and digital media piracy is here to stay. There are several reasons to this.

Tech companies will continue to manufacture gadgets that make piracy more easily accomplished. Sony, Panasonic, Kodak and Olympus among others will continue churning out digital cameras with higher capabilities and specs. In the long run, these cameras will be able to record crisp pictures and videos in spite of dark lighting. What do you expect? These cameras will be used in movie theaters!

Mass copiers of DVDs will not go out of style. Southeast Asia has often been accused as a source of pirated movie DVDs and software. It may seem unfair but such accusation is justified nonetheless. Yet, the manufacture of mass copiers of DVDs will never go out of style. And they will be used for the production of pirated movie DVDs.

The internet will continue to grow and enable better means of file sharing. More and more applications and software are being created to facilitate easier transfer of data and files. Alongside this, people will always find means to share files and make them available for download without fees. Open source is also becoming very popular in the software development industry. Its basic principles will spill over into movies, DVDs and digital media and will help justify “open sourcing” and “free wares” and downloads.

Controlling and regulating the Internet heavily may not be possible in the near future. Torrentspy in the United States closed shop as a result of a concerted effort of the government and the digital media community. Japan is also moving an enforcement of denial of service to internet users who download movies through peer-to-peer platforms. Although these moves are being undertaken to stop piracy, it would still be very difficult to regulate the Internet given its anarchic nature.

The Brighter Side of Piracy

Piracy has a brighter side, though. If you look at it, movie and digital media pirates are actually helping promote the movie industry in the Philippines and in the world.

DVD and CD piracy is an effective channel of distribution. Not all people have access to movies and digital media. In the Philippines, movies are being shown mostly in major cities only. There used to be a number of movie houses in the provinces. Yet, with the onslaught of big malls with posh moviehouses, the smaller players in the industry have closed shops. Yet, the people in far flung barrios and towns do not have access to movie houses. So what do they do? They go to where pirated DVDs are available, buy them, watch them and soon they also become aware of what’s going on in the movie industry of the Philippines and of the world.

Piracy is also the developing world answer to inequities in the industry. The movie industry in the Philippines is easily dominated by foreign (read: American) films. Although these movies (at least the blockbusters) are raking in millions of dollars from Philippine shores, piracy is creating an alternate mode of distribution that somehow evens out the odds. A friend of mine describes piracy as “a means of redistributing wealth.” Heheh.

Pirated DVDs and CDs provide access to hard-to-find classic, foreign and art films. Since these classic and hard-to-find films are already out of print or at least not available in major video stores, they can be had through piracy. This way, it becomes easier to get access to such movies.

In spite of the evils of piracy, it is helping promote the movie industry. People who, otherwise, wouldn’t have access to movies are now getting access to them. As long as the movie industry does not have an effective means of distribution to the fringes and to the grassroots, piracy is here to stay. What the movie industry and the distribution channels need to do to at least mitigate piracy is to establish better means of distribution that are both affordable and extensive.

Do you think piracy can ever be stopped?

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