Hi! My name is Diwa and I'm a Web designer and front-end developer by day; gamer by night. This is my tumblr account where I dump some of my drawings and re-post stuff that one may or may not like. Diwa is a Tagalog word meaning 'spirit' or 'essence'.
Drawing Board
Okay. Breathe in, breathe out. Begin.
I swear, our gaya-gaya (copycat) culture just can’t stand being behind, even if to the point of being idiotic. I mean, bad enough that the Philippine entertainment (?) industry is just unabashedly ripping off from what’s hot in Hollywood, now they’re “pirating” the idea of having something similar to SOPA/PIPA! The way I see it, it doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t work that way here.
As far as I know, nobody bothers to pirate/download local music, TV shows and movies. The Philippine masses acquire their piracy fix not by illegal downloads but thru cheap pirated DVDs and/or CDs sold in the streets. In broad daylight. Not to sound elitist, but who would bother making illegal downloads or filesharing movies shown from last December’s Metro Manila Film Festival? Promise, not worth the time and effort. By the same token, anyone here interested in streaming the complete seasons of “Daisy Siete” or “Ula: Ang Batang Gubat”?
Also, same thing goes with the music industry here. In as much as there are very talented singers here, they can only do so much with the material they’re given. Most performers just rehash and record cover versions of past hits. Face it, we do not need yet another bossa version of some hip hop song.
And here’s the thing: I’m not even sure if these people actually obtained permission from their US counterparts in recording the said cover versions. Sometimes, they don’t even acknowledge the original artists, composers, and/or copyright holders in their album jackets or covers. They just make a version just because the great unwashed gobbles it up like krill for whales. That being said, they’re just as guilty with piracy by not paying any royalties to the original artists, composers, and/or copyright holders.
Okay fine, there are still those who produce good original material. But more often than not, these people get only a pittance for their effort. Also, the big industry players tend to put down these independent artists. (Yes I’m looking at you ABS-CBN for how you dealt with the indie people behind Zombadings.)
And don’t even get me started with local writers. There’s just no money when you’re a local writer. Unless you’re a hack writing tagalog romance novelettes. I’ve read better amateur fanfics if you ask me.
So yah, this is just plain idiotic.
(Source: plurk.com)
