“borrowing” (read: stealing) registered trademarks/logos may be prevalent worldwide but it still does not excuse the fact that it is WRONG.

But even when you come up with 100% of your own ideas, take your own photos, draw your own work, it’s amazing how it can be echoed in other people’s work. Like there’s some communal brain soup out there that we tap into when we sleep or something. It can make for interesting tensions.

I heard a story of Richard Serra (installation artist who works with distressed oversized metal wall structures) criticizing Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC, saying she had copied his style. Which was just nutty…

I agree that being able to name a problem is necessary to diagnose and then improve it. I didn’t mean to say that just because it happens elsewhere makes it okay when it happens in the Philippines. Definitely, some of the solution is accountability (as MM did in chasing down the logo nappers) and educating young designers that taking images from the internet isn’t professional (and IMO as a professional of 15 years, simply not very effective in getting real business for your clients through branding).

There’s a Buddhist concept of “adding on” that can be very damaging that I’m seeing in this discussion, is why I brought up seeing the same things happen in New York.

For example, let’s say I fight with a friend, and when I replay the situation in my head, I don’t just say: “I lost my temper, I should have listened to my friend more carefully” (true). Let’s say I “add on” something like: “I’m stupid, I’m just a bad person, I keep doing this, I’ll never change, I made a fool of myself, etc etc etc etc” (not true). In trying to make sense of a situation, sometimes we attach a lot of extra judgement that isn’t helpful or truthful. In the end, it’s a distraction.

I feel like we Filipinos do this “add on” thing a lot, we judge ourselves very harshly. I don’t feel like it’s the same as simply acknowledging a genuine mistake, we load up on all the extra judgement and make it absolute. In the long-run, I think this damages our sense of self-worth, and how we carry ourselves in the world. It cements this idea that we are second to other societies, and that isn’t true. I know that we genuinely want better for ourselves, and maybe this is why we are so hard on ourselves when we see things that are wrong, but I think it’s counter-productive.

That’s all I meant to address in saying this is not a problem particular to the Philippine character (which seemed like where the discussion was headed), but I see it as something that has come out of the digital revolution, and is a global issue.

https://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/10/mark-twain-helen-keller-plagiarism-originality/

https://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/06/20/everything-is-a-remix-3/

Making copies of DVDs for a profit seems black to me as well. But how about making copies where there is no apparent monetary gain? Let us see if we can “tease a little gray/grey” out of this specific case.

In the “Betamax case” of 1984, (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc.) “the Supreme Court of the United States […] ruled that the making of individual copies of complete television shows for purposes of time shifting does not constitute copyright infringement, but is fair use. The Court also ruled that the manufacturers of home video recording devices, such as Betamax or other VCRs (referred to as VTRs in the case), cannot be liable for infringement.”

So “technically” it would be perfectly legal for you to record anything broadcast on tv for your personal use. That specific circumstance would be “white”.
How about if you have a friend over and both of you watch the time-shifted copy of the show? That would be still “white” with maybe a hint of “gray”. If you lend your friend your time-shifted copy, would that be a tad bit more “gray”?
How about if you play the time-shifted show and have your varsity football team over of which you only have a few friends and others who you merely tolerate and others you probably couldn’t even stand being around for 10 seconds?
Is there a specific number of people or a specific condition/group of conditions or composition of a group of people where that group of people is no longer considered a “private party” and is now a “public gathering” and would constitute a violation of “fair use” of showing the time-shifted show?
Because the technology of the time permitted it (Betamax, VHS), is that much different from a digital copy playable on a computer and shareable via the internet (today’s existing technologies)?

It kind of reminds me of how it was scandalous of women to show the skin of their ankles decades ago and as the years passed by, the amount of skin exposure inched on until you can now see maybe 80-90% of skin in a public performance on TV and most of the populace doesn’t find that in bad taste. Year by year, inch by inch.
But I digress again.

Here’s another thought exercise:
If you planned to watch a movie that is already quite old and could sometimes be caught syndicated on a tv network but were originally planning to watch it by buying a DVD, would watching the tv show from a friend’s time-shifted copy be considered/counted as a “lost sale” or “lost revenue” for the company that owns the rights to the movie?
Is buying a used original DVD of the movie also considered “lost revenue” for the company? (Because the profit of the second-hand original DVD certainly doesn’t end up in the company’s coffers. The person who used to own the original DVD gets your money.)
If a couple of individuals form a club and each one buys one original unique DVD and they pass each other their DVDs in a round-robin manner of sharing, would that also be “lost revenue” for the company?
I would imagine that if the “round-robin DVD sharing co-op” would not be bothered by the large media companies if the groups are small enough and no monetary gain would be had by pursuing those few groups. But if the group were large enough or there were so many small DVD co-ops that it did make a monetary dent on the media companies?
Would you be bothered if the media companies lobbied for laws to make it illegal to form such co-ops? Would you be bothered if the media companies lobbied to have a “bailout” to compensate themselves for “projected lost revenue”?
If the company tried to come up with figures/numbers to count the number of people they might have potentially lost sales to, would it be right for them to count the cases above? Could they count the people who had no intention of buying a DVD to watch the movie but, it so happened that they had a friend that had an original/time-shifted legal copy of the movie that they were still able to watch the movie?

I don’t think that “gray or grey for many folks is a situation born out of an inability to insist on the concept of right or wrong.” I still firmly think that sometimes it is just not so black or white.

I might even go so far to say that the insistence to not open your mind to see the various shades of gray would be akin to a religious fanatic that insists on purely divine creation and the godless scientist who can only see a Darwinist evolution and both turn a blind eye to the possibility that it could be both and somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.
Like holding onto a “sacred cow” when you should be putting it out to pasture. Or when your cup is fill, you can’t pour any more wine into it. But I’m mixing my metaphors now.

And then there’s the legality of one thing not always equating to its “morality”. What is legal is not always what is right. It is not always so black or white.
Apologies but I could not think of a specific example relating to DVDs or the media industry. So I’ll just go with this example: there was a time in US history that the discrimination of people based on their skin color was perfectly legal. It was legal back then but for us living in the present, living decades and centuries after that time in the past, we have the benefit of history and hindsight to know that it clearly wasn’t/isn’t right.
I know, not an appropriate example especially when I’m trying to focus on the specific topic of pirated DVDs.
How about this: the “royalty” business model of the music industry? I know that royalties can be inherited. How many years (or generations) would it be right to still earn royalties from a piece of music? Would you be miffed if royalties existed in Shakespeare’s time and his ancestors alive today would still be reaping the royalty payments for each copy of his works that was still published? If it were legal, would it be right?

Anyway, that’s all I have for now. Hopefully I’ve unburdened my brain enough and it will allow me to sleep now. Thanks MM and everyone who have shared their opinions and thought on this topic. I second the sentiments of the commenters that this blog has provided nourishing recipes and intellectual discourse; food for the body and the mind. :-)

And by the way, Getter Dragon 1, it is illegal in US law for US citizens to knowingly be party to corruption in the US or abroad. This means a US citizen going to the Philippines and offering a bribe to a Philippine government entity is a crime.