Philippine Copyright Law

IPR Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines is officially known as Republic Act No. 8293.

The Philippine copyright law is based on United States copyright law and the principles of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

Philippine copyright laws, unlike other copyright laws, also protect patents, trademarks, and other forms of intellectual property.

There are also other laws that protect copyrights, like the Optical Media Act, which protects music, movies, computer programs and video games.

Copyright implementation is done with the coordination of the Intellectual Property Office IPO and the Copyright Division of the National Library of the Philippines.

The Intellectual Property Code splits works that may be copyrighted into 17 classes, listed from A to Q. While all the classes listed are specifically for copyrighted material, trademarks and other forms of intellectual property, depending on what it is, are covered as well. Patents do not have a category.

A: Literature (books, pamphlets, etc.)
B: Periodicals (newspapers, tabloids, magazines, etc.)
C: Public speeches and other public speaking works (speeches, lectures, sermons, etc.)
D: Letters
E: Television or movie scripts, choreography, and entertainment in shows
F: Musical works (lyrics, songs, song arrangements, etc.)
G: Art products (drawings, paintings. sculptures, etc.)
H: Ornamental designs and other forms of applied art (not necessarily industrial designs)
I: Geographical, topographical, architectural, and scientific works (maps, charts, plans, etc.)
J: Scientific and technical drawings
K: Photographs and cinematographic works made in a process similar to photography
L: Audio-visual works and cinematographic works made in a process similar to making audio-visual works
M: Pictures used in advertising (includes logos)
N: Computer programs
O: Other works not covered in classes A-N of a literary, scholarly, scientific, or artistic nature
P: Sound recordings
Q: Broadcasts

Duration of copyright

The Intellectual Property Code sets the following for the duration of copyright protection of different works in the Philippines:

Literary works (classes A, B, C, D, E, F, G, I, J, M, N, and O): lifetime of the author and for 50 years after his/her death.

Applied art (class H) : twenty-five years from the date of creation.

Photographs (class K): fifty years from publication (published) or from creation (unpublished).

Audio-visual works (class L): fifty years from publication (published) or from the date of creation (unpublished).

Sound recordings (class P): fifty years from December 31 of the year which the recording took place.

Broadcast recordings (class Q): twenty years from the date the broadcast took place.

Copyrights generally last 25 years for corporate works, which include product designs and logos.

The Intellectual Property Code also protects pending copyrights by providing automatic copyrights, a move similar to automatic copyright provisions in United States copyright law, as stated in the code since provisions in the code provide for automatic copyright once the work has been made.

Fair use
Section 185 of the Intellectual Property Code provides for fair use of copyrighted material is based on the United States fair use doctrine. Copyrighted work will be evaluated based on the following:

The purpose of the usage of the copyrighted material to be classified as fair use
The nature of the copyrighted work
The amount or portion of the copyrighted work being classified as fair use
The effect(s) the copyrighted materials has or have on the potential market and the value the item has to enriching the item of
which the copyrighted material is being classified as fair use
Even if a copyrighted work is unpublished, it can qualify as fair use under Philippine copyright law.

Moral rights
Moral rights, which can be exercised by any copyright holders (individuals, corporations, etc.), are enshrined in Chapter 10 of the Intellectual Property Code. However, Section 193 of the code (which is also in Chapter 10), which also outlines a copyright holder's moral rights, makes these rights independent of economic rights outlined in Section 177 of the code.

Under Philippine copyright law, moral rights are relatively expansive on the behalf of the copyright holder, which are listed below:

Attribution

The right to be prominently displayed as the creator of the copyrighted material, in any form practical to the work  The right to change or even withhold the work from circulation

Integrity of ownership

The right to object to any alteration detrimental to the name of the creator of the material
The right to restraining the use of the creator's name in a work not of his making

Copyright holders are not allowed to be forced to create or publish his or her works already published, as that could be classified as a breach of contract. However, the copyright holder could also be held liable for breach of contract.

The Intellectual Property Code also permits the waiver of moral rights in most cases, but does not allow it if the following situations occur:

If the creator's name will be used to damage the reputation of another person
If the creator's name will be used to give credit to something he or she did not make
Moral rights are automatically waived in collective works unless the copyright holders expressly reserve their moral rights.
Also, if no objections have been made during the time a copyright holder waives his or her moral rights or even if moral rights were waived unconditionally, works altered or even destroyed would not constitute as a violation of moral rights.

In the Philippines, the term of moral rights, unless they were waived, is the same as the term of copyright of a literary work (lifetime plus 50 years). Violation of moral rights may also be contested as a violation of the Civil Code. Any damages collected under the Civil Code shall be given to the copyright holder, or if the holder is already dead, be put in a trust account to be given to the copyright holder's heirs. If the heirs defaulted, the damages go to the government.

Ownership of copyright
Philippine copyright law expressly gives copyright ownership to the copyright holder. Since Philippine law permits automatic copyright, a copyright notice is not needed.

Government copyright
Government copyright under Philippine copyright law is established in Section 176 and its subsections. Under the section, all official Philippine texts of a "legislative, administrative, or judicial nature" or any official translation of those kinds of texts may not be copyrighted and are in the public domain.
Apart from government documents, no work of the Philippine government, as well as the works of government-owned and/or controlled corporations, can be copyrighted (images, documents, and the like). However, prior approval is needed if a government work will be used for making a profit (most notably the Philippine constitution).

There are exceptions to the rule:
the author of any public speaking works may have the works compiled, published, and copyrighted, and the government is permitted to receive and hold copyrights it received as a gift or assigned. However, such copyrights may not be shortened or annulled without prior consent of the copyright holder.

Composite copyright
There are no provisions in Philippine copyright law on the issue of composite copyrights. However, composite copyrights are permitted usually in the form of split copyrights, where each part of a work is copyrighted, as in audio-visual works, sound recordings, and cinematographic works.

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