 How do you differentiate trade secrets from personal skills and

competencies?

Trade secrets are information and not skills. The skills and training that an employee
acquired and developed from his/her work experience in the company are not trade
secrets.
In some cases, especially when a company is highly automated and digitalized, it is
difficult to distinguish the worker’s skills from the company’s trade secrets. It is also
difficult to determine whether or not the employee transferring is guilty of technology
piracy or revelation of his/her former company’s trade secrets.
In actual cases of headhunting, a pirating company is definitely guilty of unfair competition
if and when this company covetously wanted to possess and own not only the personal
skills and work experience from the employee but also the trade secrets of the competitor
where the employee is pirated.

 What are the motives in pirating a “loaded” employee/officer of a

competitor?

1. The company wants the experience and skills of the employee.

- The second company would definitely benefit from the work experience and
skills of the employee acquired from working in the first company.
2. The company wants to acquire the its competitor’s trade secret.

 What is digital video recording?

Digital Video Disc

- Sometimes known as the digital versatile disc or superdensity discs.
- Can store up to 8.5 GB of data on each side of the disc the same size as
today’s compact disc.
- This is more than 13 times the 800 MB or so that current CD-ROM discs
hold enough capacity to hold two full length movies with a better looking
picture than with today’s one-movie laser discs.
In 2007, there was a raging war between two formats: high definition DVD (HD-DVD) and
blu-ray discs.
Manufacturers, including Matsushita Electric and Toshiba, were promising DVDs and
players by late 1996, but various complications and concerns were putting that date in
jeopardy. In addition to the usual technical glitches, there was widespread concerns in
the entertainment industry over illegal copying or technology piracy This is one of the
reasons that DVD players were unable to record programs, at least initially, while the
industry was working on a copy protection scheme. Somehow the social responsibility of
those in the digital multimedia industry starts here (Maximiano, 2003)

 What is technology piracy in digital recording?

Technology piracy is a more generic term, anything related to an unauthorized use of a
patented/copyrighted work. It is tantamount to stealing a trademark or a copyright and
because stealing is immoral, technology piracy is also immoral, illegal, and socially
irresponsible.

 What are the forms of digital piracy?

Piracy generally refers to the illegal duplication and distribution of sound recordings.
Forms of digital piracy
1. Pirate recordings are the unauthorized duplication of only the sound of legitimate
recordings, as opposed to all the packaging, i.e, the original art, label, bitle,
sequencing, combination of tiles etc. This includes mixed tapes and compilation
CDs featuring one or more artists.
2. Counterfeit recordings or unauthorized recordings of the pre recorded sound as
well as the unauthorized duplication of original artwork, label, trademark, and
packaging.
3. Bootleg recordings or underground recordings are unauthorized recording of live
concerts or musical broadcast on television or radio.
4. Online piracy is the unauthorized uploading of a copyrighted sound recording and
making it available to the public or downloading a sound recording from the internet
site, even if recording isn't resold.

 What are the bad affects of digital piracy?

Bad effects of digital piracy
1. Music pirates are the first to lose because the recording industry and law
enforcement officials are cracking them from around the world. Do the crime and
pay the fine or do the time.
 2. Consumers also lose because the shortcut savings enjoyed by pirates drive up the
costs of legitimate product for everyone. A pirated tape or CD is when the quality
is inferior or the product is defective are often not returnable.
3. Honest retailers (who back up the products they sell) lose because they can not
compete with the prices offered by illegal vendors. Less business means fewer
jobs, jobs often filled by young adults.
4. Record companies lose. Eighty-five percent of recordings released do not even
generate enough revenue to cover their cost.
5. The creative artists lose. Musicians, singers, songwriters and producers do not get
the royalties and fees they have earned. Virtually all artists (95%) depend on these
fees to make a living. The artist also depend on their reputations, which are
damaged by the inferior quality of pirated copies sold to the public.

 What is counterfeiting?
Counterfeiting is a criminal offense of making an imitation of an article with intent to
defraud others into accepting it as the genuine item. The term counterfeit is used most
frequently to denote imitations of coined money or of the paper currency of a government
or a bank, but it is applied also to other cases of fraudulent imitation, such as spurious
trademarks or works of art.
Who should bear the responsibility for defective fake products - the owner of the brand
name or the counterfeiter? Many people do buy illegal sidewalk CDs and DVDs in Quiapo
and Greenhills. Other consumers want product counterfeiting to continue because it is a
lot cheaper and almost as nice.

 Are consumers the victims, too?

Although products counterfeiting is considered a victimless crime because businesses
and not individual buyers suffer, it is costly to both buyers and marketers. Yes, consumers
are victims too. This is because they are duped into buying cheap and fake designer
products only to find out that the fakers are grossly inferior to the real thing.