The Law on Copyright...

Our laws protect every person's right from being violated by another. in whatever aspect, our laws provide remedies to victims of undue advantage. However, some laws are short of the needed protection to certain rights due to different reasons.

Republic Act No. 8293, known as the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, protects and secures the exclusive right of scientists, inventors, artists and other gifted citizens to their intellectual property and creations. The Law on Copyright is embodied in this Act, so as the Law on Patents and on Trademarks.

The Law on Copyright
Part IV, RA No. 8293

Section 217 of RA 8293 provides for the criminal penalties to any person infringing any right secured by the provisions of the Law on Copyright. The worst of these is a penalty of six years and one day to nine years imprisonment plus a fine ranging from five hundred thousand pesos to one million five hundred thousand pesos, and subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency.

What is Copyright anyway????

Copyright or Economic right, as mentioned in Section 177 of RA 8293, consist of the exclusive right to carry out, authorize or prevent the following acts:

1. Reproduction of the work or substantial portion of the work;
2. Dramatization, translation, adaptation, abridgment, arrangement or other transformation of the work;
3. The first public distribution of the original and each of the work by sale or other forms of transfer of ownership;
4. Rental of the original or a copy of an audiovisual or cinematographic work, a work embodied in a sound recording, a computer program, a compilation of data and other materials or a musical work in graphic form, irrespective of the ownership of the original or the copy which is the subject of the rental;
5. Public display of the original or copy of the work;
6. Public performance of the work; and
7. other communication to the public of the work.

Copyright protects Literary and Artistic works and Derivative works. Original intellectual creations in the literary and artistic domain protected from the time of their creation are enumerated under Section 172 of RA 8293. Some of those enumerated, as copyrightable, are works of drawing, painting, architecture, sculpture, engraving, lithography or other works of art; models or designs for works of art; pictorial illustrations and advertisements; and so on..

Copyright protects the rights of the authors , or in some instances, the owner of the copyright. But, what if the intellectual creations or works are placed in a public domains, public places or spaces like statues or sculptures in public plazas, streets, etc.???

Will I be liable for infringement of copyright if I took pictures of an sculpture located in a public street and posted it on the Internet? Will I be liable if I took pictures of giant billboards in Edsa and posted it on the Internet? How should the copyright of these works be protected??

Original works, like sculptures, paintings, etc., situated in public places are copyright protected. The copyright owners may have a cause of action for infringement. In this case, however, such an action may easily be dismissed because of the minimal parameters set by the law to govern unusual cases. The circumstances presented herein calls for a particular governing rules.

Works located in public areas should be free from copyright protection. In this case, there will be no infringement because no copyright is granted in the first place. This rule is fair.

The lapses on the law may be filled by a judicial legislation. No clear cut rules have been laid down since no case has reached the highest court for decision. Each case involving copyright has distinct facts that should be considered. Despite the lapses of the law on copyright, still, it is able to address the complexities of changing times.