1. Copyrightable and Non-Copyrightable Works

NON-COPYRIGHTABLE WORKS

Under Section 175 of the Intellectual Property Code¹, copyright protection does not extend to any of the following:

• An idea, procedure, system, method or operation, concept, principle, discovery, or mere data, even if expressed, explained, illustrated, or embodied in a work;
• News of the day and other miscellaneous facts having the character of mere items of press information; or
• Any official text of a legislative, administrative, or legal nature, as well as any official translation thereof. (Sec. 175, IP Code)

Copyright protects the expression of an idea rather than the idea itself. While news events, underlying facts, or ideas featured in news reporting are outside copyright protection, the actual news reports are protected as distinct from the substance of the information they communicate. Copyright safeguards the manner in which the news report is expressed—namely, the particular form or collocation of words chosen by the writer. This rule applies to electronic news broadcasts as well as written publications.

Although analyzing the idea-expression dichotomy is complex when determining whether one work copies another—such as whether a stage play infringes a book featuring identical characters and settings—it was not decisive where the contested material was admittedly an exact copy. In Abs-Cbn Corporation v. Gozon, G.R. No. 195956, 11 March 2015², the respondents conceded that the broadcast footage was an identical copy of the original without any editing or transformation of their own, dispensing with the need to trace original elements through the dichotomy.

Works of the Government

A work of the Government is a work created by an officer or employee of the Philippine Government or any of its subdivisions and instrumentalities, including government-owned or controlled corporations as part of his regularly prescribed official duties. (Sec. 171.11, IP Code)⁴

No copyright shall subsist in any work of the Government of the Philippines. However, the Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest or otherwise.

General Rule: Prior approval of the government agency or office wherein the work is created shall be necessary for exploitation of such work for profit.

Such agency or office may impose as a condition the payment of royalties.

Exception: No prior approval or conditions shall be required for the use of any purpose of:

• Statutes, rules and regulations, or
• Speeches, lectures, sermons, addresses, and dissertations, pronounced, read or rendered in courts of justice, before administrative agencies, in deliberative assemblies, and in meetings of public character.

Note: The author of speeches, lectures, sermons, addresses, and dissertations mentioned in the preceding paragraphs shall have the exclusive right of making a collection of his works.

Publication or republication by the government in a public document of any copyrighted work shall not be taken to cause any abridgment or annulment of the copyright or to authorize any use or appropriation of such work without the consent of the copyright owner. (Sec. 176.3, IP Code)⁵

Idea-Expression Dichotomy

Unlike a patent, a copyright gives no exclusive right to the art disclosed; protection is given only to the expression of the idea — not the idea itself. (Mazer v. Stein, 347 U.S. 201 (1954))³

Originality

Originality is the sine qua non of copyright. If the basic design reflected in a work or art does not owe its origin to the putative copyright holder, then that person must add something original to that design, and then only the original addition may be copyrighted. (Meshwerks, Inc. v. Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc., 528 F.3d 1258 (10th Cir. 2008))⁶

For compilations, the selection, coordination, or arrangement of the contents must be original. (RA 8293, Sec. 173.1(b))

Note: The requisite level of creativity is extremely low; even a slight amount will suffice.

Updated: For derivative works, the new work must be substantially distinct from the pre-existing work to be independently copyrightable. Republic v. Heirs of Tupaz, G.R. No. 197335, 10 October 2022⁷.

Original Literary or Artistic Works

These are original intellectual creations in the literary and artistic domain protected from the moment of their creation and shall include in particular:

• Books, pamphlets, articles and other writings;
• Periodicals and newspapers;
• Lectures, sermons, addresses, dissertations prepared for oral delivery, whether or not reduced in writing or other material form;
• Letters;
• Dramatic or dramatico-musical compositions; choreographic works or entertainment in dumb shows;
• Musical compositions, with or without words;
• Works of drawing, painting, architecture, sculpture, engraving, lithography or other works of art; models or designs for works of art;

Work of Architecture

Copyright in a work of architecture shall include the right to control the erection of any building which reproduces the whole or a substantial part of the work either in its original form or in any form recognizably derived from the original

Note: The copyright in any such work shall not include the right to control the reconstruction or rehabilitation in the same style as the original of a building to which that copyright relates. (Sec. 186, IP Code)⁸

• Original ornamental designs or models for articles of manufacture, whether or not registrable as an industrial design, and other works of applied art;
• Illustrations, maps, plans, sketches, charts and three-dimensional works relative to geography, topography, architecture or science;
• Drawings or plastic works of a scientific or technical character;
• Photographic works including works produced by a process analogous to photography; lantern slides;
• Audiovisual works and cinematographic works and works produced by a process analogous to cinematography or any process for making audio-visual recordings;
• Pictorial illustrations and advertisements;
• Computer programs; and

Computer

An electronic or similar device having information-processing capabilities

Computer Program

A set of instructions expressed in words, codes, schemes or in any other form, which is capable when incorporated in a medium that the computer can read, of causing the computer to perform or achieve a particular task or result.

• Other literary, scholarly, scientific and artistic works.

(Sec. 172.1, IP Code)⁹

Note: Works are protected by the sole fact of their creation, irrespective of their mode or form of expression, as well as of their content, quality and purpose. (Sec. 172.2, IP Code)¹⁰

B. Derivative Works

The following derivative works shall be protected by copyright:

• Dramatizations, translations, adaptations, abridgments, arrangements, and other alterations of literary or artistic works; and
• Collections of literary, scholarly or artistic works, and compilations of data and other materials which are original by reason of the selection or coordination or arrangement of their contents. (Sec. 173.1, IP Code)¹¹

Derivative works shall be protected as new works, provided however, that such new work:

• Shall not affect the force of any subsisting copyright upon the original works employed or any part thereof, or
• Be construed to imply any right to such use of the original works, or to secure or extend copyright in such original works.

Published Edition of Work

In addition to the right to publish granted by the author, his heirs, or assigns, the publisher shall have a copyright consisting merely of the right of reproduction of the typographical arrangement of the published edition of the work. (Sec. 174, IP Code)¹²