A COPYRIGHT licensing group estimated that the book publishing industry lost about P3.6 billion in revenues last year because of “unfair” production of learning materials and modules and closure of private schools.
Filipinas Copyright Licensing Society Inc. (Filcols) Executive Director Alvin J. Buenaventura, in a recent statement, said that the Department of Education’s (DepEd) recent mandate in the production of learning materials for the students amid the pandemic contributed to the industry’s losses.
“The agency also released Department Order 18, s. 2020 which directed teachers to produce learning materials and modules for the students. This resulted in many errors, some of which even went viral. Then, the schools are ordered to mass produce the same. For us, this is clearly unfair use,” he explained.
Citing the Book Development Association of the Philippines, Buenaventura said that the industry incurred a 60-percent cut in revenue last year following the order, including losses due to closing of private schools. The pre-pandemic revenue of the industry, meanwhile, was P6 billion, he said.
“Deducting the combined loss of 60 percent will give us an estimated loss of P3.6 billion,” Buenaventura explained.
“Teachers are trained to teach. Developing learning materials like textbooks and modules require a different skill set. This department order resulted in market failure and loss of income for our authors and publishers,” he lamented.
Buenaventura stressed that the books or substantial portions of them, once published and sold, should not be reproduced without securing the author’s permission unless it is covered by fair use.
He explained that only a “small portion” of the books is allowed for reproduction. “Sadly, there is a culture of unfair use masquerading as fair use in our country,” the Filcols official added, explaining this undermines copyright laws.
In a way, Buenaventura said that the DepEd violated the Book Publishing Industry Development Act of 1995 or Republic Act 8047, which privatized the textbook market.
“The main aim is to open the public schools market to the private sector so that these publishers may grow and become globally competitive. This also allowed them to hire more people thus creating jobs,” he told the BusinessMirror.
Under the RA 8047, Filcols noted that the DepEd’s task is only to prescribe the guidelines in preparing the learning competencies and other specifications of the books to be used by public elementary and secondary schools.
The National Book Development Board (NBDB), meanwhile, accredits private sector publishers seeking to supply textbooks for the public schools.
The publishers, guided by the minimum learning competencies, are tasked with producing and supplying the textbooks, Buenaventura explained.
Buenaventura said that the NBDB, following requests from various industry groups, has reached out to stakeholders, adding that DepEd agreed to procure third and fourth quarter modules from the private publishers.
“As for Filcols, their reply was they need a longer time frame to determine the copyright license, which in my mind is strange because we have been negotiating with them since May 2020,” he said.
“For Filcols and our industry, copyright is the cornerstone that supports the Philippine book publishing industry. Without copyright, our book publishing industry will collapse along with publications like newspapers,” he added.
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