Anti-online content piracy bills filed in Senate

Two bills seeking to protect the creative industry against online piracy have been filed in the Senate.

Actors-turned-lawmakers, Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr., filed Senate Bills 2150 and 2385, respectively.

In his explanatory note, Estrada noted the “pervasiveness” of piracy in the country which he said severely hampers the growth of the creative economy and lead to loss of jobs or displacement of workers.

“[T]here is a need to establish regulations and effective mechanisms to protect intellectual property rights. This bill proposes to disable access to online sites which facilitate copyright infringement and introduces procedure for preventive action and site blocking,” Estrada said in SB 2150.

Meanwhile, Revilla filed SB 2385 to “empower the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines to disable access to sites which infringes copyright and initiate action for site blocking.”

“In order to give aid to the creative industries, this measure endeavors to cloak them with a mantle of protection against piracy which has now transcended into the online realm. The proposed amendments contemplate the new issues which enfeeble their growth and progress,” Revilla said in his explanatory note.

Both measures were already referred to the Senate committee on trade, commerce, and entrepreneurship but these have yet to be tackled and deliberated since 2023.

The slow progress of the bill has prompted stakeholders of the creative industry to issue a statement, considering that the Senate bills’ counterpart measure in the House of Representatives has already been approved on final reading.

“No legislative action. Not even the first committee hearing was conducted on those Senate bills since they were filed several months ago, and even a similar  bill in the House was already approved on final reading almost a year ago,” the statement read.

GMA News Online already sought the comment of Senator Mark Villar, chairperson of the Senate trade, commerce and entrepreneurship committee, but his office has yet to respond as of posting time.

Among the creative industry stakeholders who are pushing for the revision of the Intellectual Property Code were actors Ryan Eigenmann, Cai Cortez, and Kiray Celis, presenter and host Pia Guanio-Mago; and director-writer Fifth Solomon.—AOL, GMA Integrated News