Senator Edgardo J. Angara has urged the Senate to amend the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines as the improvements are needed to attract more investments into the country.

“As we promote our investment potentials to Asian giants, the flaws in Philippine intellectual property laws could provide a drawback for the country not just to investors but to our interests,” warned Angara.

The amendment seeks to include broadcast materials openly shared on the Internet in the law, as this has become a common problem for Asian and Western providers in their international markets.

“One of our weak points, even in Asia as a whole, to attract investors in the science and technology, research and development, digital media and renewable energy sectors is the issue of piracy and the open exchange online. We must curb this and impose more defined mandates and penalties to violators,” said Angara who is chair of the Congressional Commission on Science and Technology and Engineering (COMSTE).

Proposed amendments of the existing IPC integrate more comprehensive and efficient strategies to respond to the upsurge of internet piracy and recognize the rights of performers, producers and broadcasters as due authors of their works; and acknowledge their right to control or be compensated for which their works are enjoyed by others.

They also recognize the rights to distribution and rental, and rights to claim fees for certain forms of public broadcast.

“‘Internet treaties’ intended to modernize and supplement existing international treaties on copyright, responding to critical issues in digital technologies, especially in the dissemination of protected material on the internet,” Angara noted.

Aside from consequent backlash to royalties and revenues for affected artists and producers, the Philippines, and Asia in general, also endures a reputation as an unsafe haven for investors in digital technology-based businesses such as software development, film production and multi-media.