Blocking of sites with pirated content pushed

The Intellectual Property Rights Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) said it was keen on mandating internet service providers (ISPs) to block websites promoting piracy and hosting pirated content, seeing the move as an effective way to curb these types of online crime.

During the Philippine Book Festival in Davao City last week, IPOPHL Director General Rowel Barba said that they had finalized the draft guidelines for voluntary site-blocking and were awaiting ISPs to be on-board through a memorandum of understanding.

With the new rules in place, the IPOPHL said that intellectual property right owners will finally be able to lodge a request at their office to order the blocking of a pirated site.

The IPOPHL said that their IP rights enforcement office would conduct a thorough assessment of the websites that would be the subject of such complaints.

Barba said this upcoming website blocking measure by the IPOPHL could be strengthened further by two proposed bills—House Bill No. 7600, authored by Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, and its counterpart in the upper house, Senate Bill No. 2150, authored by Sen. Jinggoy Estrada.

“If passed into law, these measures will allow IPOPHL to issue the appropriate site-blocking orders and ISPs will have to comply with the order within 48 hours,” Barba added.

The House bill has been approved by the House of Representatives on third reading while the Senate bill was filed just last May.

Counterfeit and piracy reports lodged at the IPOPHL surged by nearly fourfold during the first half of the year, driven by complaints on pirated gaming software, as well as by fake brands of apparel, perfume and beauty products.

The government IP rights body said it recorded 200 reports of counterfeit and piracy incidents from January to June this year, a 286-percent increase compared to the 52 it received in the same period in 2022.

The government agency said that piracy concerns totaled 152, accounting for around 76 percent of the total and increasing from only nine reports in the first half of last year. INQ