AMENDMENTS TO INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CODE

My professors who have been lawyers for decades often say that we are very lucky for the benefits of the advanced technology available now, because during their time, they had to go to public libraries to get the books, the copies of decided cases and other materials for their assignments. I understand their bitterness. I remember reading the life of the great American president, Abraham Lincoln, walking far distances just to borrow books because he was so poor that his family could not afford a formal education for him.

Maybe they are right. With just one click on the screen of your computer, you can have access on any information that you want. You could even have them printed and shared with your friends.

But this of course has its disadvantages. You just can’t reproduce a book and share it with others without being liable to the authorities for infringing the Copyright Law. And mind you, these authorities, though they may seem not to be active and serious in their monitoring functions, are actually serious and prompt. You’re very lucky if you have managed to be invisible from them for a long period, but I tell you, they will catch you when you least expect it.

So are we really lucky living in this generation?

 I don’t think so. What is the point of making all these copyright works available when you cannot have access to it even just for personal and academic use?

What is the point of having only a limited right to use them and still be subject to the permission from the copyright holder and the Intellectual Property Office (IPO)?

Looking at Section 230 of the new provision in the IP Code which reads:

Sec. 230. Adoption of Intellectual Property (IP) Policies- Schools and universities shall adopt intellectual property policies that would govern the use and creation of intellectual property with the purpose of safeguarding the intellectual creations of the learning institution and its employees, and adopting locally-established industry practice fair use guidelines. These policies may be developed in relation to licensing agreements entered into by the learning institution with a collective licensing organization.

There is really nothing wrong in this provision, its only proper that the state must safeguard intellectual creations . But I think this also means that the state will give more protection to the reading materials and other intellectual creations of the learning institutions and their employees than their students.

Being a student, it is frustrating searching for books or other reading materials that are so hard to find, and in finding such, still I could not use them without paying for them. And so, imagine a working student struggling to make ends meet everyday, photocopying all the books he needs without any care whether or not he is already infringing the copyholder’s  rights just so he could have the necessary materials for his studies.

This problem is common to students researchers, and those who have a deep hunger for knowledge.

Why not make life easier for them? I’m sure whatever the result of their works are, will be somehow beneficial to the whole society.

Let us all be grateful to Blogger Raissa Robles for emphasizing the issues contained in the new amendments of the RA 8296  or the Intellectual Property (IP) Code.

Agreeing with the said blogger, our government apparently, instead of sympathizing with the people to whom copies of reading materials and other forms should be made available, has intentionally chosen to give more priority to the rights of the holders. It just wakes up one day thinking that the genius minds of a few creators deserves more protection and benefits than a great number of people who hunger for knowledge and may also have the desire to share the knowledge they have gained.

Another thing I find really funny in the amendments to the IP Code is the justification of the IPO Director-General Ricardo Blancaflor when he said that the deletion of Section 190.1 of RA 8293, allowing persons arriving from foreign countries to possess up to 3 copies of copyrighted works if they are part of their personal baggage and not intended for sale, is actually better since it permits bringing in as many copies as they want provided that copyright infringement is not committed.   

This is a real form of insulting our capacity to comprehend. We are not little children to be given such answers. Couldn’t the IPO give us better answers to convince us that the said deletion is really intended for more benefits to the people?

With all the issues raised in the approved amendments, the IPO has assured us that such issues will be addressed in the implementing rules and regulations that they are currently drafting.

I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Although the amendments are clear in limiting the use of students and researchers of copyright works, in deleting the explicit right provided by the original provision of the IP Code, and the exclusion of personal purpose as part of fair use, maybe the IPO could really make such amendments beneficial to the people as mandated by the Constitution.

How the IPO could include the deleted parts from the original provisions of RA 8293 in the implementing rules and regulation of the new amendments is an action worth waiting.