Friday, October 11, 2013

Excerpts: Philippine IPR Laws

Excerpts of Philippines Copyright Law from Wikipedia

Fair use

Section 185 of the Intellectual Property Code provides for fair use of copyrighted material. The criteria for fair use is almost identical to the fair use doctrine in United States copyright law, with the exception that even unpublished works qualify as fair use under Philippine copyright law.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

As the country is a party to the Berne Convention, Philippine copyright law expressly gives copyright ownership to the copyright holder automatically for creative works which fit in one of the categories.

Government copyright

Government copyright under Philippine copyright law is established in Section 176 and its subsections. That section specifies that no copyright shall subsist in any work of the Government of the Philippines. However, it also specifies that prior approval of the government agency or office wherein the work is created is necessary for exploitation of government works for profit.[1]

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.

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