WHETHER SUCH ACT OF DOWNLOADING IS INFRINGEMENT OR NOT, SHOULD LAWS SIMILAR TO THE US PROPSED LEGISLATION “SOPA/PIPA,” UK’s ‘DIGITAL ECONOMY ACT OF 2010,” FRANCE’s “HAPODI LAW,’ and NEW ZEALAND’s “THREE-STRIKE” RULE BE PASSED IN THE PHILIPPINES AND SHOULD THE PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT ENTER AND RATIFY THE “ACTA” TREATY, TO REMEDY ONLINE PIRACY.

WHETHER SUCH ACT OF DOWNLOADING IS INFRINGEMENT OR NOT, SHOULD LAWS SIMILAR TO THE US PROPSED LEGISLATION “SOPA/PIPA,” UK’s ‘DIGITAL ECONOMY ACT OF 2010,” FRANCE’s “HAPODI LAW,’ and NEW ZEALAND’s “THREE-STRIKE” RULE BE PASSED IN THE PHILIPPINES AND SHOULD THE PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT ENTER AND RATIFY THE “ACTA” TREATY, TO REMEDY ONLINE PIRACY.

"Piracy” in the Philippines is used interchangeably with “copyright infringement” which is the unlawful copying of software, videogames, movies or MP3s. Due to serious, rampant and contagious problem emanating from online piracy in the Philippines, the Philippine government is inclined to form a bill similar to that of SOPA or PIPA which aims to help protect copyright owners from having their content pirated by others, either as a hobby or for profit.  The materials or files involved are usually movies, music, software, photos and other IP-protected content. Normally, it is the record labels and the movie producers are the ones heavily affected by the online piracy.

Aside from the Business Software Alliance which deals with the surveillance among areas prone to software piracy and the Optical Media Board or OMB which raids shops and stalls selling fake cds and dvds, this Anti-Online proposal bill will urge people to combat along with the coordination of concerned sites and internet service providers against the escalating online piracy. The proposal is still a proposal and most likely be patterned to the abovementioned SOPA and PIPA of the US Congress with more adjustments acclimated to local settings.

                With the approval of such bill, it may or may not include any or all of the following provisions and penalties concerning shutting down local websites illegally distributing pirated software and applications; closing down of local sites that provide downloads of unlicensed songs or movies; blocking off international sites that are known to openly assist in illegally distributing copyrighted materials; imposing penalties on local websites that uses copyrighted materials without proper consent or attribution; and imposing penalties on individuals or groups that openly share or distribute copyrighted content.

The positive effect of it could help online publishers and bloggers in many ways. Blogger can simply have another website or blog shut down for illegally copying their articles, photos and videos. Furthermore, a blogger can now claim damages against news portals illegally lifting their copyrighted videos and photos. Also, bloggers can report sites that scrape their RSS feeds and have local ISPs block these sites. Likewise, web designers can run after 3rd parties that copy their designs, logos and artworks and implements it on their own website or sell them to others.

Bloggers frequently asked questions redound to how they can protect their content from being used by others without their consent. According to some articles, it can be remedied by enabling a number of technical safeguards like “prevent hotlinking, watermarking, reporting to Google AdSense, filing DMCA complaints”.

Having this proposal enacted into a bill will provide a lot of benefits to bloggers, website owners, independent artists and web designers. On the other hand, this could be the end to a lot of local sites likes sites that offer video streaming TV shows and dramas like telenovelas and news, blogs that offer downloads to cracks and hacks the software, forums that provide ways for users to share copyrighted files or materials such as songs, mobile applications  and the like.

It is but right and in tune with the present scenario to create a bill which would somehow lessen or totally eradicate online piracy without prejudice to local sites. This is based on the premise that those who are involved with such illegal acts know for a fact and from the start that what they are doing are, by nature, illegal hence cannot be permitted nor consented to favor a class or sector of society when such acts resulted to a violation of one’s legal right protected under the law.