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On 17 November 2009, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed into law Republic Act No. 9775, also known as the “Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009”.

The law makes it a criminal act to (a) employ or use a child to perform in child pornography, (b) create or produce any form of child pornography and child pornography materials, (c) offer, sell or promote child pornography or child pornography materials, (d) possess, download, reproduce or purchase them for sale or distribution, (e) publish, post, transmit, distribute, exhibit or broadcast any form of child pornography or child pornography materials, (c) knowingly view, access, obtain or possess even for personal use child pornography materials, or (d) attempt to commit child pornography by luring or grooming a child.

A child is defined as one who is below eighteen (18) years of age or those over but are unable to fully take care of themselves or protect themselves from abuse, neglect, cruelty, exploitation or discrimination because of a physical or mental disability or condition.

The depiction of a child in child pornography or child pornography materials, regardless of age, or the child’s representation as such in digitally or manually crafted images, undeveloped films, videotapes, movies, drawing, cartoons, paintings, sculpture, audio, real time Internet communications, in written texts or materials, and similar means fall within the ambit of the penalties provided for by the law.

Under pain of imprisonment and/or fine, Internet service providers (ISPs) and Internet content hosts are required to prevent access or transmittal of child pornography materials and to preserve evidence for the purpose of investigation and prosecution by concerned authorities.

And with (a) Internet cafés, (b) private and public educational institutions, (c) public and private offices; and (d) service providers, such as telephone companies, are required to install blocking system or software to prevent transmittal of or access to child pornography materials.

The law also created an Inter-Agency Council Against Child Pornography.

You may also view the full text of the law  by clicking here.

LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) - 22 April 2007 Issue

“At the age of 38, I decided to step out of the rat race of New York, join the Peace Corps and board a plane for Manila. This blog is dedicated to my adventures in the Philippines for the next two years. Wish me luck.” This is how Julia Campbell, an American Peace Corps volunteer whose dead body was found several days ago by rescuers in a remote village in Mountain Province, described herself when she started her blog in December 2004.

During the past couple of years, the growth of blogs in cyberspace has been remarkable and phenomenal. 

Leading blog tracker, Technorati, reported that as of March 2007 there are more than 70 million blogs in the blogosphere, a term originally coined jokingly, they say, by American blogger Brad L. Graham in 1999, which has reference to the community of bloggers. Technorati reported that there are at least 1.5 million blog posts each day and approximately 1.4 new blogs are created every second.

For those not in the know, a blog, an abbreviated version of the term “web log”, is an Internet-generated journal where the user may write, edit, and post entries, usually displayed in reverse chronological order, about practically anything from facts to fiction, from news to mere announcements, from commentaries or opinions to personal experiences and share them to the on-line community to view, read, link, or comment on. The term “web log” was coined by American blogger, Jorn Barger in 1997 while the short form “blog” was the idea of a certain Peter Merholz.

Blogs are actually the digital evolution of traditional journals and diaries, where people keep a running account of their personal lives. With the facility and convenience of the Internet to capture different media formats, several types of blogs were also born, like ‘photoblogs’ for photographs, ‘vlog’ for videos, ‘podcasting’ for audios, ‘moblog’ for those generated by mobile devices, ‘splogs’ for that pernicious spam blogs, ‘slogs’ for a slice or section of a regular business website, or a ‘blawgs’ for legal blogs.

From being a mere social network of personal and individual online journals and diaries more than a decade ago, the blogosphere is increasingly re-defining mass media, human interaction and global culture today.

Blogs have the capability of shaping and even influencing public opinions and events. Blogs are easy repository of desired information or even entertainment, in the same vein that they could be the root cause of conflict and antagonism. Some fortunate bloggers earn good money from their blogs through on-line advertisements or by publishing a ‘blook’, the term used for published books based on blogs.
 
It is not difficult to understand why blogs are consistently and aggressively becoming a very popular mode of human expression. There is no other form of public and mass media nowadays that could compete with blogs in terms of facilitating, propagating and pushing the exercise of freedom of speech and expression beyond the limits of costs, regulations and censorship.

Blogs are largely anarchic and generally beyond the ambit of prior restraint and the usual restrictions obtaining in mainstream mass media, although bloggers are certainly not immune from criminal liability or certain legal responsibilities by reason of their posts. Each blogger therefore becomes responsible for his or her acts in cyberspace.

On February 22, 2007, a court in Alexandria convicted an Egyptian blogger for insulting Islam and the Egyptian president on his writings in the Internet.

Former flight attendant Ellen Simonetti of North Carolina was fired by Delta Airlines for inappropriate entries in her blog that documented her personal life and experiences. In 2006, however, she successfully published a book about her blog entitled: “Diary of a Dysfunctional Flight Attendant: The Queen of Sky Blog”.

Early this month, Malaysian Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin was quoted to have said that bloggers should not be exempt from the same controls as the mainstream media, and accused them of using lies to overthrow government.

Blogging is about human freedom.  And it would be here to stay and further revolutionize human expression.

LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) – 1 April 2007 Issue

Prior to the introduction of the movable type printing press by German goldsmith and inventor, Johannes Gutenberg, in 1450, there was no economic incentive for pirating written works. It was also very expensive and painstakingly slow to copy manuscripts by hand.

But the printing press changed altogether this environment and the protection of written works considered as intellectual property became a noteworthy concern of states.  And so at the instigation of French novelist, poet and playwright, Victor Hugo, and the association of literary artists that he founded in 1878, an international agreement called the “The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works” was born in Berne, Switzerland on September 9, 1886.

Creation, distribution and usage are the usual processes involved in any intellectual property governed by copyright particularly written works. Creation would mean how the written work would be fixed in some tangible medium. Distribution is how the tangible medium of expression would be put in circulation for the general public to use usually upon payment of some consideration.

The development of earlier technologies like phonograms, radio, television, film and home video gave a new face on the manner by which an intellectual creation are created, distributed and used. These technologies became an alternative medium of expression in addition of course to the usual printing and publication. Verily, the copyright regime did not have much difficulty addressing these innovations to protect the rights of creators, publishers or distributors.

But all of a sudden, the emergence of user interface in digital technology, or the ability of computers to communicate online in a network, brought about a paradigm shift. 

Many creators and authors are able to take advantage of cyberspace to publish and distribute their own works through websites and blogs without the usual intervention of publishers, printers and distributors. They say that this promotes greater access to knowledge.

On the other hand, some publishers and distributors of written works also joined the bandwagon to catch up with technological developments by publishing books on line in electronic format known as ‘e-books’ or distributing written works using the Internet as a marketing tool. But others think that this technology would drive them away from their usual business.

The biggest challenge though that online technology poses is on digital copyright. With the ease of uploading and downloading files in whatever format in the computer network, there is much difficulty regulating or controlling how a work of intellectual property is distributed and used. How the copyright regime would evolve to effectively address online piracy and infringement is now a serious global concern.
 
As part of the effort, the Philippine Intellectual Property Office led by its Director-General Adrian S. Cristobal Jr. with the assistance Atty. Louie Andrew C. Calvario of its Copyright Support Services in partnership with the Japan Copyright Office and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) represented by Geidy Lung and Kentaro Sugiura just concluded this week the “Sub-Regional Roundtable on Copyright-Based Business: Authorship, Publishing and Access to Knowledge.”

The major issue that local and foreign participants sought to address was the identification of key strategies towards the development of publishing industries and access to knowledge. The forum included presentations on new models in the digital environment like Creative Commons and reprographic rights organizations.

It would obviously take the stakeholders a lot of time, patience and efforts to address nagging issues confronting copyright vis-à-vis Internet technology. 

The information technology revolution however is not something to be afraid of or be perceived as a necessary evil.  It should be taken both as an opportunity and challenge in fostering access to knowledge, the formation of new business models, and bringing about a positive global culture.

After all, any human endeavor, like law, should be taken as technology neutral.