The Government’s Attitude Toward the Informal Sector and Piracy

Abstract

The government attitude toward the informal sector in piracy-laden countries in Southeast Asian countries such as the Philippines and Vietnam has been ignored in media piracy studies. Investigations often focus on the deficient copyright laws and law enforcement. This chapter explores the relationship between the supportive and nonhostile government policy toward the informal sector and the difficulty of fully formalizing the optical media business, specifically the optical media retail piracy trade, as demanded by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and corporate lobbying groups such as the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA). To provide a context to this connection, this chapter first provides an overview and clarification on the definition and measurement of the informal sector, citing some current issues and problems encountered by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and researchers in dealing with this term. Then using some secondary data, it proceeds to illustrate some important contributions of this sector—which includes the informal optical media retail piracy trade—to the overall economy of Southeast Asian countries, particularly to those of piracy-laden ASEAN countries. Generally, it argues that the supportive or tolerant attitude of the Philippine and Vietnamese governments as reflected in their legislation and programs toward the informal sector supports informality in business and thus provides a friendly environment for informal employment and trade such as the optical media retail trade to flourish in the informal sector. Emerging economies such as the Philippines and Vietnam see the important role of the informal sector in employment generation and economic growth. Thus, they see no urgency to expedite the full formalization of the informal optical media trade and immediately comply with the IPR demands of the United States and the United States Trade Representative (USTR).