Lawmaker underscores urgency of amending Intellectual Property Code

MANILA, Philippines — To protect some 6.89 million Filipinos in the creative industry which is now pegged at P1.60 trillion, Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Salceda has underscored the need to amend the country’s 26-year-old Intellectual Property (IP) Code.

For Salceda, the law should be reinforced by granting authorities stronger powers to crack down on pirated content, particularly in film, “the most piracy-prone component” of the sector.

“This is why piracy is a crime that can completely stifle the country’s creative sector. If our creators cannot defend what they own, they will not be encouraged to create,” he said in a speech for the symposium titled “Disrupting the Piracy Ecosystem and Protecting Legal Services” recently.

The Bicolano economist-lawmaker noted that there are “signs that the sector is already stagnating, in a country whose mass market is Asia’s most prolific users of smartphones – easy avenues for spreading pirated content.”

The creative industry is critical, as it accounts for a significant portion of the country’s gross domestic product at P1.6 trillion in gross value-added, or roughly 7.3 percent last year.

While still notable, this has already declined from 7.5 percent in 2018, when it went against the global growth trend.

Salceda has filed House Bill 7600, which seeks to introduce stronger provisions in the IP Code as “an antidote to the viral nature of content piracy, enabled by the internet.”

The proposed amendments are intended to make IP protection in the country more proactive by introducing powerful mechanisms, such as site-blocking, which, according to the legislator, is “critical to intellectual property protection because the internet has accelerated the transmission of pirated content.”