Thursday, February 19, 2009

Dream on, PAPT.

According to an article from inquirer.net, individuals downloading music, movies and software are being targeted by the Pilipinas Anti-Piracy Team (PAPT), a consultant for the software organization Business Software Alliance (BSA). It is noted that prosecution of such individuals may not happen until the Intellectual Property Code is amended, to which amendments have been proposed by Congressman Rufus Rodriguez and Senator Edgardo Angara. A BSA consultant is of the view that end-users should also be liable for piracy, even if downloads are for personal use. He adds that the E-Commerce Law has no specific provisions on prosecuting piracy through downloading. Also, there are few foreign laws governing prosecution of users who download content from the internet, partly because content is hosted from different places.

So... they want to target end-users. Okay. But with the current state of the law, both locally and internationally, the chances that their policy direction will be implemented are looking pretty dismal. Let’s say that the necessary amendments are approved, do we have the capability to enforce them? They can’t even sufficiently control the pirated DVD market, what more individual downloaders who don’t do it for profit? Tsk. Good luck with that.

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