racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Inquirer Online’s Joey Alarilla
writes on software piracy, particularly that of games.  He
contends that while some see it as a necessary evil, because Pinoys
generally could not afford to purchase the real deal (i.e. genuine
software), the fact is that piracy is big business.  While to some, game software provides easy access to entertainment, it cannot be denied that,

… game piracy is an international crime, a global
phenomenon. It’s a very profitable criminal enterprise, and while it’s
absurd to think that every individual pirate is directly involved with
drug or arms smugglers, what the ESA and law enforcement agencies are
saying is that the big syndicates mass-producing and shipping pirated
games all over the world are also involved in other crimes, including
drugs and terrorism in some countries. Take the Russian mafia, for
example, which authorities claim is involved with all kinds of bootleg
goods, including pirated games and Internet pornography.

And since no one will sell these products if no one is buying them, we as consumers are also part of this food chain.

Joey goes on to continue,

Piracy has made games, movies, music and other
goods affordable to more Filipinos. But if we want to become producers
of original Filipino games instead of just being consumers, then we
have to start supporting our game developers. Yet look what’s
happening. Our knowledge workers are trying to produce original
Filipino content, but the public would rather keep getting things for
free or almost free. Pati Anito pinirata. Pati OPM pinipirata. Pati
Filipino movies pinipirata.

There are some who consider piracy to be the “revenge of the third world,” inasmuch as the genuine
article is most of the time out of the reach of the common consumer in
developing countries.  But no doubt, this revenge will backfire in
the long term, with the piracy victims losing interest in developing
better products and services, with the fear that benefits would be
inevitably drowned out by the loss to piracy.

Read more here:

Joey’s Blog entry (on the Babel Machine)
 INQ7 Online article.

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