This was the
question posed by John-Willy Rudolph during our trip to Bislig City, Surigao del
Sur last September 18, 2011.
Rudolph is the
chair of the Norwegian Copyright Development Association (NORCODE), the
organization established by five collective management organizations (CMOs) in
his country to help new CMOs abroad like the Filipinas Copyright Licensing
Society, Inc. (FILCOLS).
He visited Manila to give a talk on the experiences of Kopinor, the reproduction rights organization (RRO) he led as executive director for 24 years, during the 32nd Manila International Book Fair (MIBF) held at the SMX Mall of Asia, Pasay City on September 11.
Aside from the
author, Rudolph was accompanied by Membership Officer Bebang Siy and Licensing
Officer Leo Almonte.
 |
| FILCOLS Membership Officer Bebang Siy. (Photo by Alvin J. Buenaventura) |
A brief
background
Copyright is
the legal protection given to authors of scientific, literary, artistic, and
dramatic works. Works are creative outputs like books, journals, songs, paintings,
sculptures, among others. Chapter IV of the Intellectual Property Code of the
Philippines (IP Code) lists more examples of works and provides the scope of
the protection.
When an author’s
work is produced by the book publisher, it is called primary use. Meaning, this
is the first time the author directed the publisher to use his or her
reproduction right to print copies of the book.
After the books
are sold, the author receives royalties. However, second-hand books may be sold
without paying the author another set of royalties because he or she has
already exhausted the primary use.
Reproduction via
photocopying or digital copying is called secondary use. However, the IP Code (Sec.
177.1) states that only the author can authorize the reproduction of his or her
work except for small portions that may be covered by fair use.
In many educational
institutions, books and other materials are usually reproduced by students and
teachers every semester. Without authorization and payment to the authors, the
regular and large-scale reproduction of works is obviously not fair.
These large-scale
reproductions may violate the authors’ reproduction rights and deprive them of
their livelihood thus the need for an RRO, which is a specific term for
organizations collectively managing the rights of authors and publishers. CMO
is the new, general term that is replacing the older term RRO internationally.
 |
| FILCOLS Licensing Officer Leo Almonte. (Photo by Alvin J. Buenaventura) |
The RRO is the
bridge between authors and publishers (rightsholders) and end-users (students,
teachers, institutions). They are authorized by rightsholders to offer copyright
licenses to institutions. The large-scale reproductions are made legal in
exchange for a minimal fee.
In Norway and other
Scandinavian countries, the prevailing view among CMOs is that copyright is a
human right. This is anchored in Article 27.2 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights which states: every one has the right to the protection of the
moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary, or
artistic production of which he (or she) is the author.
The IP Code
calls them Moral Rights and Economic Rights. These are the two main components
of copyright.
Here is how I
processed our discussion.
What you
can’t name: you can’t identify
Names are
necessary to identify something and separate it from similar things. For
example, Jupiter has a number of moons, and the massive ones were named Io,
Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. However, Earth possesses only one, so we call
it the Moon.
The names of
Jupiter’s moons make it easy and practical to point to the specific moon. And
the name makes it stand out from the rest of the moons.
If one cannot
name something, one cannot identify that something.
 |
| FILCOLS Executive Director Alvin J. Buenaventura. (Photo by Bebang Siy) |
What you
can’t identify: you can’t measure
Clear identity
and separation of something from the rest of similar things makes it easy to
measure it. For example, ordinary Filipino employees receive salaries and
allowances. The salary is the basic minimum wage set by the government.
Allowances are those benefits provided by the company voluntarily to their
employees without government order.
Naming
everything the employee receives as “sweldo” or “compensation” will make it
hard to measure increases in the basic minimum wage, if there is an order from
the government to do so. It will also be hard to measure increases in
allowances like transportation, food, medical, and clothing.
If one cannot
identify something, one cannot measure that something.
What you
can’t measure: you can’t improve
I worked for
five years as executive assistant to the Chair of the National Book Development
Board (NBDB). Out of the many speeches made by Dr. Dennis T. Gonzalez, I distinctly
remember the one he made in 2007.
As the NBDB
chair, he explained the decision of the board to spend more than a million
pesos on the second nationwide Readership Survey. The NBDB is primarily tasked with
developing the Philippine book publishing industry. One of the ways to do this is
to improve access to books and raise the level of readership.
I remember him
saying that we cannot see changes in book access and readership level among our
people, especially among the youth, if we do not have a baseline to see whether
the interventions are working.
The future
heads of the NBDB should make the survey a regular service for the book
publishing industry. The survey provides measurable data which can be used to
compare with surveys in the future.
If one cannot measure something, one cannot
improve that something.
Applying
these to royalties and remuneration
Rudolph said it
took them some time in Norway to decide what to call the income right holders
receive from Kopinor. There were many names proposed: RRO money, compensation,
remuneration, photocopying money.
But not
royalties. Because royalties are the income of authors from the sale of their
books, given by the publishers. The publishers’ income is not called royalties
but sales revenues.
The authors and
publishers together are called rightsholders or right holders. Both are members
of Kopinor. And, they both receive their share from Kopinor.
Eventually,
they settled on calling the income from Kopinor: remuneration. Although many
still call it photocopying money especially in relation to the books published
under the grant from Kopinor and are showcased in the House of Literature
(Litteraturhuset) in Oslo.
Remuneration is
the income received by both the authors and publishers from Kopinor. Later,
other CMOs followed the custom of using remuneration to differentiate it from
royalties.
 |
| (L-R) John-Willy Rudolph, Leo Almonte, Alvin J. Buenaventura, and Bebang Siy. |
Why the
fuss, then?
After naming
and identifying remuneration, then it makes it easy to measure it and then
improve it.
From the
perspective of the CMO, the board and management can monitor the remuneration
they are collecting from various licensees. It is now easy to adjust their
efforts to see remuneration grow.
If the
remuneration increases then their current strategies are working. If the
remuneration decreased then they need to sit down, set new directions, craft
new plans, and even examine government and international policies to help
improve it.
From the
perspective of the government and international organizations like the
International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations (IFRRO), World
Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), International Publishers Association
(IPA), among others, they can craft new policies based on the numbers presented
to them by their members.
Both the
national government (in the case of the Philippines, the NBDB and the
Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines) and international
organizations need numbers (provided by the CMO) they can identify and measure
to help them decide which way to go or what policy to craft.
And these same
numbers are measured after the new policies and interventions were introduced
to assess if things improved or not.
Learning from
Kopinor’s experiences to build up FILCOLS
Armed with
remuneration data, Kopinor was able to demonstrate to its government through
the Ministry of Culture that the CMO is contributing much to the country’s
economy and culture. They are invaluable to the book publishing industry’s
ability to survive, provide employment, and continue producing new works.
They also
provide support to the development of their national culture through the new
books created via Kopinor’s publishing grant.
Kopinor also financed some of the book fairs managed by the Norwegian Publishers' Association.
The same
remuneration data is what Kopinor uses to bolster its concerns among
international bodies like IFRRO, WIPO, and IPA especially the still
uncontrolled and unremunerated digitization of published materials.
Kopinor is not
the only country affected by mass digitization. The practice is rampant all
over the world especially in countries with increasing internet infrastructure
and bandwidth.
 |
| Librarians and other staff of the De La Salle John Bosco College with Rudolph and the FILCOLS team. |
Following the
path of Kopinor, once FILCOLS collects remuneration from its licensees, it can start
distributing to the members. This can be used to prove that collective
management is viable in the Philippines.
FILCOLS can use
its remuneration data to inform the government that it is functioning and that
its existence is important for the publishing industry and development of
national culture.
And that
government (both NBDB and IPOPHL) must ensure that FILCOLS succeeds as the
country’s CMO for the book publishing industry.
Notes:
NORCODE is
composed of Kopinor, TONO, NORWACO, BONO, and GRAMO.
John-Willy
Rudolph is also the manager of Kopinor’s Development Fund.
NORCODE and
Norway’s Ministry of Culture provides financial support to FILCOLS through a
grant which started in August 2010.
About the
author:
Alvin J.
Buenaventura is the executive director of FILCOLS. He is the first officer of a
Philippine RRO to participate in the WIPO-NORCODE Training Programme on the
Management of Copyright and Related Rights in the Global Economy, which was
held in Oslo, Norway (June 2-19, 2009) and Accra, Ghana (December 1-5, 2009).
The
author allows the reposting of the unaltered article provided the following is
included at the end:
Text and photos by
Alvin J. Buenaventura. Photo by Bebang Siy.
For more
information, please visit https://filcols.blogspot.com
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