Despite the lashing the U.S. Congress is getting because of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), several organizations in the Philippines are pushing for a local version of the bills.
According to Ramon Chuaying, executive vice president of Universal Records, the Philippine Association of the Record Industry, the Motion Picture Anti-Film Piracy Council, the Motion Picture Association, the Business Software Alliance, and the IP Coalition have joined forces to lobby for an anti-piracy measure similar to SOPA and PIPA.
SOPA and PIPA are meant to combat online piracy by blocking websites that are deemed to have enabled or facilitated copyright infringement. If a story on your WordPress site has even just one link to a blog you didn’t know is accused of infringing on, say, a recording company’s content, you risk being removed from all search-engine results.
WordPress could be ordered to remove your source of livelihood. Payment processors like PayPal could be prevented from accepting payments to and from your website. Internet-service providers could be asked to block you as well. In short, you could be going, going, gone… just like that. Because if Google and PayPal, among others, don’t comply, they could be shut down.
Here in the Philippines, if the anti-piracy bill being cooked up is passed, “we will require the Internet [service] providers to block off ‘yung mga illegal websites.” Chuaying added that they are hoping to have the measure passed this year.
They’re reportedly in talks with Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez and Senators Loren Legarda and Edgardo Angara. (As of 2 p.m. today, I am still double-checking this claim. Rep. Rodriguez admitted to being approached by the groups but Sen. Angara said “he has yet to ‘see and study the draft of the Anti-Internet Piracy Act,’ adding that such a piece of legislation would have ‘far-reaching implications to Internet users [via InterAksyon].’” Sen. Legarda still can’t be reached at the time of posting.)
I will talk more about this as soon as I find out the exact details of the said anti-piracy bill. Here’s to hoping that it isn’t as freedom-prohibiting and as flawed as SOPA and PIPA. Go after pirates, but do it the right way. Imagine a world without Facebook and Twitter. Imagine a world without search engines. Imagine not having a voice online. We might as well go back to the dark ages.
Interview with Universal Records’ Ramon Chuaying
[Image via Pro Pakistani]
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