A House bill (HB) seeking to protect the creative industry and at the same time bolster the economic recovery of the Philippines has hurdled the committee level.

Approved by the House Committee on Trade and Industry in a public hearing Tuesday, Feb. 14 was HB No.7028, authored by Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda.

The full title of the measure reads, An Act amending Chapter XVII of the Republic Act (RA) No.8293, otherwise known as the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, as amended.

If enacted, the bill will institutionalize the blocking of websites hosting pirated content such as movies, television series, television shows, videos and songs. This will prevent the further erosion of revenues from the creative industry and spur the industry to greater heights.

Salceda, chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, estimates that currently, between 7.3 percent to 15 percent of the economy relies on copyrighted material.

By protecting the creative industry and its ecosystem, he expects this to deliver a larger share of the economy especially with the digitalization of consumers and businesses.

“As content has become more easily transmissible in the digital space, infringement has also become more prevalent in the online space. As such, a more dynamic and proactive manner to prevent such infringement is necessary, but is currently unclear or absent in current law," Salceda said.

"Particularly, there is a need for an explicit mandate and clear regulations and standards to allow Rights Holders to apply to the Intellectual Property Office to order the disabling of access to Infringing Piracy Services," he noted,

HB No. 7028 lists down the procedures for intellectual property (IP) rights holders like content creators to request for website blocking and ensures that the process observes due process requirements.

“You cannot own what you cannot defend. That’s why these powers are just as important as actions to promote content creation. More media and creatives are moving towards the digital space. Vivamax, IWantTV, among others create and stream Filipino content. They will lose out, along with the jobs they create, if we don’t block pirated content," the Bicol solon said.

Salceda further explained that ever since the pandemic-induced lockdowns in 2020, online content piracy has caused an estimated loss of P1 billion in potential revenue to local video producers, distributors and aggregators, citing a study by Media Partners Asia.

It can also be recalled that the 2020 Metro Manila Film Fest posted the lowest revenue turnout in history as local movies were pirated and sold online via streaming or downloads.

The movie festival only grossed about P20 million, well short of the P955 million in 2019 and P1.060 billion in 2018.