Damn Expensive Gravy

"Pirated" from Conrad Banal's column published on Monday's Philippine Daily Inquirer  (http://business.inquirer.net/42027/is-it-the-economy-cupid)

 This is true confession time: I also buy what they call “pirated” DVDs. Everybody in my family does, including my rich brother-in-law, and even my much richer cousins and cousins-in-law. The guys down here in my barangay do, too, without exception.

I just have one question: How do you tell that the DVD copy of an American television series is “pirated?” The series was already shown to the public in the United States—on free TV. I have been trying to wrack my brains thinking how, er, to “pirate” something that was already aired for free?


Also, how can you—as a trusting consumer—tell if the DVDs of copyrighted “movies” (versus TV series) that are sold in places known for selling “pirated” DVDs, are actually the “pirated” kind, particularly if they are exact replicas of the “original” DVD? For that matter, how can you tell a fake designer shirt from the real one?

I can only guess that you can only distinguish between the two by looking at the price. The “pirated” DVDs and fake goods are much cheaper than the “authentic.”

Thus, I guess we buy pirated DVDs out of economic reasons. They are available and they are cheap. So sue us.

If only those companies that produced those hit movies worth pirating could reduce the price of the DVD versions, say, to $1 per copy, then a lot of us would really not bother to go for inferior pirated copies. Look, the movies already raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in the cinemas. Money from the DVD version is just the gravy.

Well, to us, it is some damn expensive gravy!