A citizens’ rights group has called on the 19th Congress to endow the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) with greater police power–specifically site blocking–as a means to protect the creative industry from online pirating.

“IPOPHL should be empowered to implement rolling site blocking to effectively purge online pirates who violate intellectual property and threaten the viability of the creative industry,” said lawyer Tim Abejo, convenor of rights group CitizenWatch Philippines in a statement made Friday, June 17.

As per CitizenWatch, “site blocking” is an anti-piracy mechanism wherein access to flagged websites is restricted; it is regulated through cooperation between the government and internet service providers (ISPs). It adds that “rolling site blocking” is a more effective, pro-active form of the anti-piracy mechanism.

“In the ASEAN region, the Philippines is the only county not enforcing rolling site-blocking. We are missing the opportunity to clamp down hard on these online pirates,” Abejo continued.

CitizenWatch named the IPOPHL specifically as the agency can enforce and protect the Intellectual Property (IP) rights of owners.

However, IPOPHL Director General Rowel Barba thinks that the current site-blocking powers of the agency are not enough to enforce anti-piracy measures.

Legislation–through an enabling law–is needed to institutionalize the agency’s powers and bypass the National Telecommunications Commission’s validation; essentially removing delay to enable real-time or rolling site blocking.

“Criminals and infringers may just migrate to a new site, where they regain normal traffic after only a few weeks. This is common practice among pirated networks so the job of stopping them becomes more challenging than ever,” said Barba.

“Site-blocking will enable IPOPHL to craft its own guidelines on takedowns, such as having ISPs comply within hours instead of several days as the current process would take. Rolling site blocking, as opposed to simple site blocking, will be disruptive as it will provide rights owners with the swift response they need in preventing further harm to their IP rights and potential revenues,” Barba continued.

Meanwhile, the Asia Video Industry Association (AVIA) found in an industry report that throughout Asia, legislation institutionalizing rolling site blocking had massively hindered online piracy sites: From 2019 to 2020, Indonesia saw a 55 percent decrease in consumer access to piracy services; in Malaysia, a 64 percent reduction.

The Australian Screen Association found similar results, with an observed decrease in 53 percent reduction in consumer access to piracy services from the time website blocking laws were passed in 2015.

According to a study by Media Partners Asia cited by CitizenWatch, the Filipino-based video producers, distributors, and aggregators lost about P1-billion in potential revenue in 2020 while subscription video-on-demand services lost about P6.3-billion in potential revenue as a result of online piracy.

The IPOPHL, in a 2014 study backed by the World Intellectual Property Organization, found that 14.14 percent of Philippine Employment came from copyright-based industries, and that these industries contributed about 7.34 percent to the country’s gross domestic product in 2010.