DVD Piracy - A Good Thing

I took a leap of faith and watched Senator Ramon "Bong" Revilla jr's movie entitled Resiklo and I must admit that I liked the robot designs if nothing else. They seemed to resemble the robot designs of the "mechs" from the Mechwarrior franchise but that observation is probably greek to anyone else but a fellow hobbyist. The point I am trying to make is that the Metro Manila Film Festival has left me with scant movie choices other than Shake, Rattle and Roll and Enteng Kabesote ad infinitum and the dearth of entertainment options has forced me to resort to pirated DVD's for viewing pleasure.

Piracy is a crime, against international conventions etc but if not for piracy I wouldn't have been able to view, strictly for academic research, cough, cough, Marvel's latest Direct to DVD animated feature Doctor Strange nor would I have been able to watch every episode of Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. Through the magic of pirated movies, people I know have discovered foreign culture and modes of thinking that they couldn't have picked up anywhere else. Piracy of DVDs works for me and I believe that it works for all student members of the class as well as most of our fellow Filipino citizens. Let's face it, life in this country is hard. Without small pleasures like illegally acquired movies, the regular Filipino would have little to entertain himself with besides his regular drinking spree and WOwowee. The laws on intellectual property are not being strictly enforced at least with regard to DVDs and that is how it should stay. The government may be hostage to US aid and concurrently to US policy on intellectual property and thus have no choice but to enact the strict laws that the US demands if it is to keep its trade quotas but for once its inability to enforce the laws it makes is good for its people. If only such ineptness were an actual policy, the pirates would not have to pay police and local officials for "protection" and we could get our pirated DVDs at a cheaper rate. Or perhaps the government could just tax the makers and sellers of pirated DVDs. But that has as much chance of happening as jueteng becoming legal. Which is nil. Another fine example of government making laws for the benefit of everyone but itself and its people.

As an aside, I have never bought pirated DVDs of Filipino movies and the vendors I know don't keep them in stock. So Sen Ramon "Bong" Revilla has nothing to worry about. Filipino movies are not, on the whole, worth pirating anyway.