Corruption and the Nonenforcement of the Optical Media Law

Abstract

The persistence of the optical disc piracy trade in the Philippines and Vietnam, two Southeast Asian countries consistently listed in the United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) Special 301 watch lists as piracy hot spots in Southeast Asia, is sustained not just by the lack of law enforcement but by the inaction of some law enforcers and government officials who are in alliance with illegal piracy traders and other illegal protection groups. Piracy reports often view the persistence of optical disc piracy as caused by nonenforcement of law. But nonenforcement is not always fueled by lack of regulation. Ironically, in some situations where corruption is involved, the presence of law enforcement often results in nonenforcement. By strategically taking no enforcement action, “corrupt” enforcers intentionally permit illegality and piracy. In this case, the enforcement system is colonized—borrowing Habermas’ term—by illegal networks, leading to the collusion between law enforcers and illegal traders. Thus, the replication and sale of counterfeit discs in these two countries could not be attributed only to the lack of law enforcement but, above all, to corruption and conspiracy by those who are enrolled in the illegal trade. Using documentary and ethnographic data, giving more emphasis on the Philippine situation owing to some limitations of data on some aspects of the piracy trade in Vietnam, this chapter analyzes sociologically some social patterns and cases of corruption, particularly bribery, and how they result in some forms of nonenforcement of the optical media law in the Philippines and Vietnam. Ultimately, this chapter argues that what the optical media law says “it is” may not be what “corrupt” law enforcers and other illegal groups say “it is” in actual social practice.