Chapter 5 Social and Technological Forces Supporting the Piracy Trade (original) (raw)

This chapter describes the various intertwining social and technological macro forces which sustain the illegal optical disc piracy in the Philippines and Vietnam. Owing to limitation of data on Vietnam, the chapter focuses more on the Philippines particularly on Quiapo Barter Trade Center Complex (QBTCC) piracy network, the main optical media piracy hub in the Philippines, although there are some patterns which can be found in both countries. It opens with a general profile of traders of optical disc piracy trade in the Philippines and Vietnam. Then it argues that these Filipino and Vietnamese traders participate in the piracy business because of some major social, economic, and technological factors other than weak legal, judicial system and law enforcement systems that encourage them to participate in counterfeit media business piracy. This includes “push” factors such as the adverse socio-economic situations in the rural areas in Philippines and Vietnam. In the Philippines, the war in Mindanao, poverty and social discrimination drive the displaced Maranao and Maguindanao Muslims to migrate to urban centers and engage in optical disc retail piracy as an alternative livelihood, and “pull” factors such as the opening of more trading opportunities facilitated by the Doi Moi (renovation) economic policy of the Vietnamese government, the lure of higher profits in optical disc piracy trade, and the ease of registering and maintaining a CD-DVD shops that sell counterfeit discs. The chapter ends with other important factors such as material and social networks that support the persistence of piracy: the (1) technological network: the use of allied digital technologies that facilitate the piracy business operations for traders, particularly the Internet, the cellphone and other hardware and software digital technologies, (2) kinship network: the employment of social and kinship ties to manage the illegal trade and protect its secrecy, (3) ethnic network: the use common cultural heritage for recruitment of informal workers and protection of trade secret and use of language as deterrence to law enforcement, and (4) religious affiliation: the common religious identity as Muslims creates a sense of community among traders in the Philippines which obstructs law enforcement and minimizes leakage of the piracy trade secrets.

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