Piracy is riding the wave of Pacquiao mania.
Barely two days after Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao handed Mexican Erik Morales the worst beating of his career, pirated copies of the much anticipated rematch in Las Vegas hit stalls.
While Pacquiao stayed up late entertaining calls and well-wishers, makers of pirated VCDS were also busy making digital copies of the fight.
A peddler said a copy goes for P50 and already includes the undercard fights of the promotion.
It will take some time before the euphoria over Pacquiao’s 10th round knockout of Morales will die down. Pacquiao is expected to come home from the US tomorrow.
Hard to stop
Although the VCDs are unauthorized since it is the HBO Promotions and Solar Sports that have the right to produce copies of the fight, Cebu City Councilor Sylvan Jakosalem admitted it is hard to stop and catch the culprits.
“It is going to be very difficult to address that problem. It is understood to be illegal but unavoidable because people buy such products,” he said.
Jakosalem is the chairman of the council committee on games, amusements and professional sports.
Vice Mayor Michael Rama likewise said pirated VCDs will always have a market among the poor, who would opt to buy the cheap pirated copies.
“The best thing to do is for the OMB (Optical Media Board) to go to the streets and confiscate the pirated DVDs and VCDs,” Jakosalem said.
Also yesterday, the City Council congratulated Pacquaio for “giving honor to the Philippines.”
In a resolution members approved on mass motion, the council exhorted Pacquaio for his “fearlessness, hard work and determination” that caught the Filipinos’ imagination.
“His triumph exemplified the indomitable fighting spirit of the Filipino in the field of sports and his struggle for excellence,” read a part of the resolution Councilor Arsenio Paca?a drafted.
Paca?a even put him “in the same stature of the Philippines’ boxing hero, the legendary Gabriel `Flash’ Elorde.”
The council asked the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and the Cebu Port Authority (CPA) to strictly monitor the entry of pirated VCDs and DVDs from Manila and from other countries.
Cebu’s role
In a resolution Councilor Nestor Archival presented, the council revealed countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and China are using Cebu as a transshipment and distribution point for pirated VCDs, which violates the law on intellectual property rights.
Some P3 million worth of pirated video discs were seized at the Mactan airport last October and are to be destroyed within the month.
Archival said that unlike other confiscated items that could be forfeited in favor of the government and auctioned off, the pirated video discs cannot be sold because these were produced in violation of the IPR law. (RHM)
