OMB

The Optical Media Board (OMB) has outlived its purpose and would best be abolished, Sen. Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada said on Tuesday, Feb. 21, as he filed Senate Bill No. 1904.

The Supreme Court (SC) has dismissed for lack of merit the petition for certiorari of former Optical Media Board (OMB) chair Ronald “Ronnie” Ricketts seeking the dismissal of graft charges against him in connection with his alleged failure to institute charges against those arrested for possession of pirated digital video discs (DVDs) and video compact discs (VCDs) during a raid in 2010.

At the halfway point of the campaign, the Philippine results for software legalization came second to Thailand’s and ahead of Vietnam’s and Indonesia’s.

More than half of corporations in the Philippines are still using unlicensed software in their business operations, according to the latest BSA Global Software Survey in 2018.

During its recent budget hearing at the Senate, OMB chief Anselmo Adriano said the agency is a storage-based regulatory office and is powerless when it comes to piracy committed over the Internet.

The Optical Media Board said pirated materials have migrated from optical discs to USBs, SD cards, internal, and external storage devices.

A new study of the content-viewing behavior of Filipino consumers revealed that 34% of consumers use a TV box which can be used to stream pirated television and video content.

Ironically, the BSA said the top software products being used illegally by businesses are operating systems and anti-virus solutions.

P103 million worth of optical disks were captured by the Optical Media Board but only cover the period of January to March.