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Thursday, July 28, 2005
Piracy brings down record sales by 70 percent
The Cebuanos’ continued patronage of cheap pirated CDs, VCDs and DVDs has brought big losses to local musicians and producers, who have suffered sales reduction by as much as 70 percent since 2001.
Baste Balboa, executive producer of Alpha Music Corp. in Cebu and outgoing president of the Philippine Association of Recording Industry (Pari), said they are now selling 700,000 copies of records a year in Cebu alone, way below the previous two million.
If piracy is abated even by just 10 percent, the country, which now ranks fourth in software piracy all over the world, could generate P1 billion in new tax revenues and 2,000 new jobs for the Filipinos, said Department of Trade and Industry Regulatory Division Chief Josh Carol Ventura.
Raids and arrests of traders of pirated products by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) helped a little, Balboa said, but they have yet to conduct a raid this year.
This is because they have to wait for an order from the Optical Media Board in Manila, headed by actor Edu Manzano.
Ivory Records manager Bernie Canoy said the company also suffered losses due to piracy. Canoy is the incoming president of Pari.
He said they lowered prices of their products so that they are nearly as cheap as pirated ones.
Balboa said they are coordinating with different malls in Cebu City to lower prices of VCDs, CDs and DVDs once a month to match those of pirated ones.
No threat
But Cebuano composer Paul Melendez is not threatened with piracy in Cebu.
Melendez and other Cebuano composers are set to open by September a Cebuano recording company, Sarua Records.
They are confident that Cebuanos will appreciate original products.
DTI’s Ventura said many people are still unaware of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) which is why they still patronize pirated products.
A survey conducted last year by the Business Software Alliance showed that the Philippines ranked fourth in software piracy.
China tops the list, followed by Indonesia and India.
Because of the high rate of piracy in the country, investment on information technology went down, said Ventura. (LLV)
(July 28, 2005 issue)
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