Apple contributing to music piracy

Indirectly, Apple is contributing to music piracy in the Philippines. How so? Read on.

First of all, I must applaud Apple for creating one of the world’s greatest innovations. The design and simplicity of the iPod makes it easy for everyone from 4 to 80 to use. But innovativeness in their proprietary thinking has led to selfishness which has led to music piracy. Did I make it more confusing? Bear with me please.

As every iPod owner will know, the only way to load songs to the little white machine is through a music library in iTunes. Well, ok, I forgot the little white cable. The capacity of these iPods range from the mundane 1GB to the monstrous 160GB. It’s not just music, you can now load pictures and full length movies. Again, the latter has to be in the iPod proprietary format. Am I boring you now, don’t worry, the next paragraph is the core of the article.

Where do the owners of these iPods get their songs and movies? From itunes.com? Think again. There is no iTunes for the Philippines! That means that no one with a Philippine based credit card can purchase a song for 42 pesos (99 cents). Most people (and you know who you are!) will load their iPods from tiangge type establishments for 5 pesos song and 100 pesos per movie. If they won’t load, they will download the songs they want through utorrent or other illegal means. If not that way, they will buy a 30 peso (is it still 30?) pirated CD and rip it to their iTunes. One little sweet revenge is that they will have to type the song info one by one so that the song title will register in their iPod.

I don’t want to brag, but because of my legal practice, I stick to a non-pirated mode of loading iPods. My newly tuned philosophy has redounded to my 12 year son. He refuses to log on to the downloading websites despite the fact that we have had DSL broadband for 2 years now. Secondly, we are at an impasse on how to convert original DVDs to the iPod movie format (Any tips?). I had to thicken my face and ask a friend of mine (actually client) to buy $50 worth of iTunes cards in the U.S. My son still has $35 balance as of this writing.

With so many iPods out there, where are all the songs coming from? When was the last time you bought an original music CD? I am sure there are only a handful of us who still do. iPod has thickened both sides of the fence. Their popularity has renewed interest in music. The more music is out there, the more business for otolaryngologists (ear doctors). Seriously though, if the source for iPods is scarce, nay, non-existent in this country, a resort to unsavory means is inevitable.

But we should not blame the buyers of iPods. I dare say that Apple should make iTunes accessible to Filipinos. I am sure that after reading this blog, I would have converted a four year old and an 80 year old to stop pirating music. If the source of our music is easily reached and affordable, we will have more new songs to appreciate (just no more NKOTB, please.) More new songs, more new iPods.

So, Apple, make iTunes for the Philippines possible!