A copyright is the legal protection granted to the owner of the rights to an original work. An original work refers to every production in the literary, scientific, and artistic domains. The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) is the government agency responsible for the registration and dispute resolution of intellectual property (IP) rights and for enforcing the country's copyright laws. IPOPHL was created under Republic Act No. 8293, or the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, which took effect on January 1, 1998, during the presidency of Fidel V. Ramos.
Under the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, literary and artistic works include books, writings, musical works, films, paintings, and other works, including computer programs.
Copyright subsists in a work from the moment of its creation, regardless of its mode or form of expression, content, quality, or purpose.
Works covered Works covered by the copyright law are (1) literary and artistic works and (2) derivative works. On the other hand, works not protected by the copyright law are (1) unprotected subject matter and (2) works of the government.
Literary and artistic works According to Section 172 of the Intellectual Property Code, literary and artistic works refer to the original and intellectual creations protected from the moment of their creation.
The list of literary and artistic works includes the following: Books, pamphlets, articles and other writings. Periodicals and newspapers Lectures, sermons, addresses, dissertations prepared for oral delivery, whether or not reduced in writing or other material form Letters Dramatic or dramatico-musical compositions; choreographic works or entertainment in dumb shows Musical compositions, with or without words Works of drawing, painting, architecture, sculpture, engraving, lithography or other works of art; models or designs for works of art. Original ornamental designs or models for articles of manufacture, whether or not registrable as an industrial design, and other works of applied art Illustrations, maps, plans, sketches, charts and three-dimensional works relative to geography, topography, architecture or science Drawings or plastic works of a scientific or technical character Photographic works including works produced by a process analogous to photography; lantern slides Audiovisual works and cinematographic works and works produced by a process analogous to cinematography or any process for making audio-visual recordings Pictorial illustrations and advertisements Computer programs Other literary, scholarly, scientific and artistic works
Derivative works According to Section 173.2 of the Intellectual Property Code, derivative works are defined as new work provided that they do not violate any subsisting copyright upon the original work employed or any part thereof, or to imply any right to such use of the original works, or to secure or extend copyright in such original works.
The list of derivative works includes the following: Dramatizations, translations, adaptations, abridgements, arrangements, and other alterations of literary or artistic works Collections of literary, scholarly or artistic works, and compilations of data and other materials which are original by reason of the selection or coordination or arrangement of their contents.
According to Section 174 which refers to the case of a published edition of work, the publisher has the copyright consisting merely of the right of reproduction of the typographical arrangement of the published edition of the work.
Unprotected subject matter The list of unprotected subject matter include the following: Any idea, procedure, system, method or operation, concept, principle, discovery or mere data as such, even if they are expressed, explained, illustrated or embodied in a work News of the day and other miscellaneous facts having the character of mere items of press information Any official text of a legislative, administrative or legal nature, as well as any official translation thereof
Works of the government According to Section 176 of Republic Act 8293, no copyright shall be applied in any work of the Government of the Philippines. To exploit such works for profit, prior approval from the government agency or office should be made. Such agency or office may impose payment of royalties. It is not required to seek prior approval or conditions for the use for any purpose of statutes, rules and regulations, and speeches, lectures, sermons, addresses, and dissertations, pronounced, read or rendered in courts of justice, before administrative agencies, in deliberative assemblies and in meetings of public character.
Ownership According to Section 178 and 179 of Republic Act 8293, the copyright ownership is under the following rules: Copyright shall belong to the author of the work for original literary and artistic works For works with joint ownership, all the authors will be recognized as original owners. In the absence of agreement, their rights shall fall under the rules of co-ownership. In the case of works whose author per part can be identified, the author of each part shall be considered as the owner of the copyright in that respective part. For works created during the course of employment of an author, copyright ownership are as follows: If the object of ownership is not a part of the regular duties of the author, the employee shall get the copyright even if he/she used the time, facilities, and materials of the employer. If the work is an output of the author for his regularly-assigned duties, the employer shall get the copyright unless there is an agreement to the contrary. For works created in pursuance of a commission to the author by a person other than his/her employer, the ownership shall be granted to the person who commissioned but the copyright ownership shall remain with the creator, unless there is an agreement to the contrary. For audiovisual works, the copyright shall belong to the producer, the author of the scenario, the composer of the music, the film director, and the author of the work adapted. However, the producer shall exercise copyright only up to what is required for the exhibition of the work, except for the right to collect performing license fees for the performance of the compositions incorporated into the work. For letters, the copyright shall belong to the writer subject to Article 723 of the Civil Code. For anonymous works and works under a pseudonym, the publisher shall represent the work's author who are either anonymous or under a pseudonym, unless the contrary appears or the author discloses his/her identity.
Types of Rights under the Law of Copyright These are the rights that authors are entitled to according to the law of copyright, under Part IV of R.A. 8293, or the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines.
Economic Rights This allows a creator to ask for or obtain payment for the use of their work by third parties. According to Section 177 of the Law of Copyright, these rights consist of the right to allow, impede, or carry out the following by the author: Replication of the work, or a portion of the work Transformation or dramatization of the original work The first public distribution of the original work and each copy of the work Rental of the original work, or copy of the work embodied in any form, including audiovisuals, cinematography, sound recordings, computer programming, or graphic work, regardless of ownership of the original work Public display of the original or copy of the work Public performance of the work Other communication of the work to the public
Moral Rights These rights allow the author of the work to maintain their personal connection to the work, and to undertake measures in order to protect this connection. The author of the work, independent of the economic rights, also have the right to: Require the authorship of the work be attributed to him or her, meaning that the author may require that their name be displayed in a prominent fashion on a copy or public distribution or use of the work To make any transformation or adjustment to the work, or withhold it from publication To oppose any and all mutilation or any other derogatory action to the work which could potentially be detrimental to the author's honor and reputation To refuse to the use of the author's name on any mutilated or distorted version of his work, or any work not of his own creation
Exceptions to moral rights Under Section 195 of the Law on Copyright, an author may waive his moral rights through a written contract. However, this contract is deemed invalid if it allows third parties to do the following: Make use of the author's name, the title of the work, or the author's reputation, in any version or adaptation of the work which could harm or be detrimental to the artistic reputation of another author Make use of an author's name for a piece of work not of his own creation The right of an author to have his contribution to a collective work credited to his name is deemed waived. A collective work here is defined as work created by two or more persons and under the understanding that the work will be attributed to the person whose direction said work is under. It is also understood that contributing natural persons will not be identified. If an author licenses or permits a third party to make use of their work, any necessary transformation, such as arranging, editing, or adaptations of work for use in publications, broadcast, or motion pictures, in accordance with the standards of the medium in which the work is to be used, shall not be found in contrary to the author's rights. In addition, the destruction of work unconditionally and completely transferred by an author shall likewise not be found in violation of the author's rights.
Resale rights The author and their heirs have the inalienable right to partake of 5% of the proceeds of the sale or lease of their original work (painting, sculpture, manuscript, composition). This inalienable right is in effect during the lifetime of the author, and for fifty years after their death.
Related rights Related rights are the rights of those whose help the author avails of in order to assist him in producing his work, and distributing this work to the public. These rights are also referred to as "neighboring rights" and include the following: Rights of performers Rights of producers of sound recordings Rights of broadcasting organizations
Infringement Acts constituting infringement Section 216 of Republic Act No. 10372 states that a person infringes a right protected under this Act when one: Directly commits an infringement against copyright; Benefits from the infringing activity of another person who commits an infringement if the person benefiting has been given notice of the infringing activity and has the right and ability to control the activities of the other person; With knowledge of infringing activity, induces, causes or materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another.
Liabilities of infringement Any person found infringing rights protected under RA 10372 shall be liable: To pay the copyright owner actual damages, legal costs, and other expenses, that may have been incurred due to infringement as well as profits earned by the infringement. Instead of recovering actual damages and profits, the copyright owner may file instead for an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved for not less than Fifty thousand pesos (Php 50,000.00). The court may consider the following factors in awarding statutory damages: The nature and purpose of the infringing act; The flagrancy of the infringement; Whether the defendant acted in bad faith; The need for deterrence; Any loss that the plaintiff has suffered or is likely to suffer by reason of the infringement; and