The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) has vowed to strengthen the local copyright system to accelerate the recovery of the creative sector, which is among the agency’s priority industries.
IPOPHL Director General Rowel S. Barba, at an event on Monday, highlighted the importance of assisting the creative industry given its potential economic contribution.
“By augmenting efforts to increase the sector’s appreciation of the copyright system, we can direct our creatives in a path of growth,” Barba said.
“Scaling up copyright appreciation in the country is very urgent today given that the creative economy was hit the hardest from this pandemic’s quarantine. The urgency of the creative economy’s recovery is also due to its potential contribution to our economy,” he continued.
With this, Barba stressed the IP agency’s “aggressive” stance against piracy in the creative sector.
IPOPHL signed a partnership with Asia Video Industry Association in April to curb piracy in the creative industry. It also teamed up with several Internet service providers to streamline mechanisms in blocking pirated web sites.
“We will promote efficient royalty collections and we will help local creative economy players attain greater control over their works and save them from being entrapped to restrictive, one-sided contracts,” he added.
Meanwhile, IPOPHL Deputy Director General Nelson P. Laluces said that securing copyright allows creators to earn a return from their published works.
Laluces added that the sector’s recovery hinges on wider integration of copyright protection of the creators in their business.
“With the protection of copyrighted works, which spans the entire lifetime of the creator and for 50 years after death, authors and their investors can enjoy enough time to harvest the economic returns from their copyrighted products and will not have to sacrifice quality for quantity,” he explained.
To further promote copyright, IPOPHL will be holding its 1st Philippine International Copyright Summit on the week of November 22.
The event will serve as a venue to discuss the latest trends and challenges in copyright regulations and enforcement.
Laluces said the summit hopes to expand copyright awareness and education to more industry organizations. In addition, the event aims to call the attention of the creatives in non-traditional, non-conventional and non-mainstream copyright-based industries.
“We hope to capacitate more creators to best protect their works when negotiating licensing agreements and when exporting said works, especially as we push for global competitiveness,” he added.
In the first four months, copyright deposits improved by 91 percent to 444 from 233 year-on-year.
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