Philippine copyright law

A copyright is the legal protection extended to the owner of the rights in an original work. Original work refers to every production in the literary, scientific, and artistic domains. The Intellectual Property Office (IPOPHL), the leading agency responsible for handling the registration and conflict resolution of intellectual property rights enforce the copyright law. IPOPHL was created by virtue of Republic Act No. 8293 or the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines which took effect on January 1, 1998, under the presidency of Fidel V. Ramos.

In the Intellectual Property (IP) Code of the Philippines, literary and artistic works include books, writings, musical works, films, paintings, and other works including computer programs.

Works are created on the sole fact of their very creation - regardless of their mode or form of expression as well as their content, the quality of said content, and purpose.

Works covered by the copyright law are (1) literary and artistic works and (2) derivative works. On the other hand, works not protected by the copyright law are (1) unprotected subject matter and (2) works of the government.

According to Section 172 of the Intellectual Property Code, literary and artistic works refer to the original and intellectual creations protected from the moment of their creation.

The list of literary and artistic works includes the following:

According to Section 173.2 of the Intellectual Property Code, derivative works are defined as new work provided that they do not violate any subsisting copyright upon the original work employed or any part thereof, or to imply any right to such use of the original works, or to secure or extend copyright in such original works.

The list of derivative works includes the following:

According to Section 174 which refers to the case of a published edition of work, the publisher has the copyright consisting merely of the right of reproduction of the typographical arrangement of the published edition of the work.

The list of unprotected subject matter include the following:

On the other hand, no copyright shall be applied in any work of the Government of the Philippines. To exploit such works for profit, prior approval from the government agency or office should be made. Such agency or office may impose payment of royalties. It is not required to seek prior approval or conditions for the use for any purpose of statutes, rules and regulations, and speeches, lectures, sermons, addresses, and dissertations, pronounced, read or rendered in courts of justice, before administrative agencies, in deliberative assemblies and in meetings of public character.

According to Section 178 and 179 of Republic Act 8293, the copyright ownership is under the following rules:

These are the rights that authors are entitled to according to the law of copyright, under Part IV of R.A. 8293, or the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines.

...
Wikipedia