Senate vows passage of tough measure vs film, music piracy

The passage of a strong measure against film and music piracy is now assured in the Senate even before the Senate committee on mass media and information could start its public hearing on such a bill.

This assurance came after all senators voiced their support for the passage of a measure against piracy in the entertainment industry and vowing to give the approval of the measure utmost urgency.

The Senate committee on mass media and information headed by Sen. Vicente Sotto III starts this morning its hearing on five bills seeking to give more teeth to the campaign against piracy, a problem that is now besetting the movie and music industries.

The measures were filed by Senators Blas Ople, Sotto, Robert Jaworski, Juan Flavier and Francis Pangilinan.

Leaders of the entertainment industry and more prominent stars are expected to attend this morning’s hearing, as they did when Sotto delivered a strong privilege speech against film and music piracy the other day.

In his speech, Sotto urged his colleagues in the Senate to prevent the death of the Philippine entertainment industry because of the unabated activities of movie and music pirates.

Sotto painted a grim picture of the movie and music industry following the onslaughts of pirates.

"The local entertainment industry estimates that piracy has resulted in as much as P800 million in annual losses for local movie producers, theater owners and legitimate video distributors," Sotto said.

He noted that last year, the local movie industry made only 94 movies, compared to the more than 200 before movie piracy gained a stronghold in the country.

He recalled that on the very first day of the showing of the movie "Pagdating ng Panahon" starring Sharon Cuneta and Robin Padilla, pirated copies of the movie were already in the market all over the country. He said that this drastically affected the showing of the movie.

"Revenue losses to the national government, as well as amusement taxes lost to local governments, must also be in the hundreds of millions although the Bureau of Internal Revenue has no figures available," he added.

He cited reports indicating that pirate factories churn out 21,000 copes of pirated compact discs and video compact discs per hour. He said these pirates are highly organized down to outlets, including some well known shopping malls.

"The tiangge of the Greenhills Shopping Mall in San Juan is the most notorious. I am told that when the police arrested some pirate sellers, their sympathizers and other sellers surrounded the police precinct, forcing the police authorities to just release the arrested sellers without filing appropriate charges," he said.

He contended that half of the problem of the piracy would be solved if only all shopping malls would follow the example of ShoeMart and refrain from selling pirated CDs and VCDs.

Sotto said that Henry Sy of ShoeMart was true to his commitment and as a result, all SM are now free of pirated CDs and VCDs.

He said that the voluntary action of store owners against the sale of pirated discs in their establishments could be an effective stop gap measure while Congress comes out with the needed legislation against piracy.

Many buyers of pirated discs were drawn by the discs’ low price from P40 to P50 each, and at times, even P100 for three discs. This is in contrast to the price of P80 for a movie ticket, and P375 for a brand-new original music or movie disc.

Sen. Blas Ople, author of one of the measures against film and music piracy, noted that the current law on intellectual property rights in the entertainment industry should be given police powers to make it more effective in fighting the menace.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said that the campaign against piracy would be more effective if it involves local officials.