ASK people in showbiz about plagiarism and you get a lot of inputs. The Pinoy isn't called gaya-gaya puto-maya for nothing.

In the movies, insiders grumble about the filmmaker who lifted parts of a foreign movie, passed them off as his own, and the film even won awards. It's even said that one key sequence was copied from the foreign original, shot-by-shot. So, why did the filmmaker get away with it? Because nobody has bothered to complain in public.

Other cases of plagiarism involve scriptwriters or directors who get ''inspired'' by the foreign plays or movies they see abroad or here on videotape, and come up with productions that are strikingly similar to them--without bothering to credit the original productions for the ''inspiration.''

Sometimes, the filmmakers involved offer up with the excuse that they really aren't copying those foreign masterworks, they're merely doing an ''hommage'' to them. The original works' makers would probably retort, ''Your 'hommage' is good, but we need royalties!''

And they would be right, because when you come right down to it, beyond the cute excuses and glib alibis, plagiarists steal other people's creative ideas, and ideas cost money. If you ''borrow'' an idea or get ''inspired'' by it, you've got to pay for the ''loan'' or ''inspiration,'' or at the very least acknowledge your very real debt to the original creator in your production's credits. If you don't do that, you're a plagiarist and thief, pure and simple.

Why do some film people steal ideas? Because it's oh, so much easier than having to think up their own--which, given their mediocrity, would probably be much less effective than the stolen concepts.

Another factor is the Filipino audience's love for take-offs and outright imitations. You can see this in extravagant evidence in our love for local singers who ape the singing styles of foreign pop stars--''the Frank Sinatra of the Philippines,'' that sort of thing.

So, imitation here is not necessarily a bad thing as far as the audience is concerned, and has provided the springboard for many a career. It's that old colonial mentality, still alive and kicking its brazen way into the new millennium.

There's the additional complication provided by productions that spoof foreign films by imitating them to death. Trouble is, the imitation is sometimes so complete that the satirical element practically disappears, and we're left with gaya-gaya, pure and simple.

A number of established TV-film people are accused of stealing concepts and plotlines from unknown writers. The deal goes like this: some veteran writers or directors who have run out of ideas invite new writers to submit formats and stories, then say that they can't use them. But, months later, the new writers are dismayed to see their works up there on the big or small screens, but with no attribution to them.

But they can't press charges because the ideas have been altered, or merged with other concepts. And besides, who would listen to an unknown's charges against an established filmmaker?

In any case, the movies and TV aren't the only entertainment fields that love to copy other people's work. In recording, some record producers take the melody of, say, a Japanese tune, put Tagalog lyrics to it, and release it as a Filipino song.

Sometimes, the original song is credited, but more often the ''borrowing'' is left unacknowledged.

So, why doesn't the Japanese composer sue for payment of royalties? Well, most of the time, he doesn't even know that his tune has been adapted for use in another country.

In theater, some producers mount foreign plays for free when they should be paying royalties for staging the scripts. It's even worse when the work being mounted without permission is a musical, because more people's rights are being infringed upon--aside from the playwright, the composer and the lyricist also need to get paid for the use of their material.

Why do the colorum producers get away with it? Because the foreign theater artists don't know that their works are being staged here. When they do, you can bet that they move heaven and earth to get their due. So, the rule should be: if you stage anybody's script, you've got to pay for the privilege.

Truth to tell, some plagiarists here will still be able to get away with artistic murder despite increasing awareness about royalties and the rights of ''originating'' artists. The bottom line has to be amor propio.

Genuine artists want to present works that are the products of their own creativity, because this is what defines them. That's why they would never succumb to the temptation of taking it easy and making other artists do the thinking for them.