Sunday, September 16, 2012

Reaction paper on “STOP ON LINE PIRACY” and determine the feasibility of enforcing it in the Philippines


Reaction paper on “STOP ON LINE PIRACY” and determine the feasibility of enforcing it in the Philippines


SOPA or Stop on line piracy bill is an anti-piracy bill introduced in the United States.  Its major purpose was to help internet provider better protect their creative and ingenious creations in the virtual world.

This SOFA provide internet provider enormous power such as shutting down all possible infringers from pirating or infringing with their creations, but then again, we are now facing a constitutional problem of what is the limitation of this enormous power and what will be the guiding ground for its implementation?

In the Philippines, provisions of the fundamental law or the Constitution were very much an issue, such as human rights violations and extrajudicial killings.  Such issues boil down into one topic, due process.  Applying such into the scenario being drawn by this anti-piracy bill, it will highly violative of the due process clause of the fundamental law that a mere letter with a view of possible good faith will be enough to shut an internet provider without even knowing the veracity of such claim and determine who has a better right to the said virtual creations.

Moreover, such unlimitless power can and will end a person or even companies virtual presence without affording the latter due process before the court.  On this note, politicking in a virtual world will be highly promoted.  The strong and the influential will survive and retain his presence in the virtual world.  This will evidently and definitely defeat its purpose of protecting the copyrightable creation of talented and artistic individuals since their works in a virtual world can be deleted by power ones.

SOFA as an anti-piracy bill was envisioned by the framers of the law to protect U.S. from external threats.  Having said that, it will be more conducive for our country to focus more in addressing internal issues and determine its ability to solve and cater the country’s need.

In conclusion, for such bill to be feasible in our country, their s a need to determine first the limit of powers to be conferred to internet providers.  There is a need for procedure on how to address such problems and should conforme with the provision of the due process clause of the constitution, for the simple reason that such law in itself will violate the most essential right of a person to life, liberty and property.
There is a need for the possible endorser of the bill into the country to expressly provide that the major focus or goal of the bill was to protect first internal issues regarding infringement; and from that point further development on how to better protect and secure each and everyone’s creation in the virtual world can be put in place.



Prepared by:

Jayson A. Ramos, CPA

Submitted to:

Atty. Berne Michael Guerrero
Prof. Tech and the Law

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