Literary and Artistic Works
Literary and artistic works, hereinafter referred to as "works", are original
intellectual creations in the literary and artistic domain protected from the moment
of their creation and shall include in particular:
(a) Books, pamphlets, articles and other writings;
(b) Periodicals and newspapers;
(c) Lectures, sermons, addresses, dissertations prepared for oral delivery, whether or not
reduced in writing or other material form;
(d) Letters;
(e) Dramatic or dramatico-musical compositions; choreographic works or entertainment in
dumb shows;
(f) Musical compositions, with or without words;
(g) Works of drawing, painting, architecture, sculpture, engraving, lithography or other works of
art; models or designs for works of art;
(h) Original ornamental designs or models for articles of manufacture, whether or not
registrable as an industrial design, and other works of applied art;
(i) Illustrations, maps, plans, sketches, charts and three-dimensional works relative to
geography, topography, architecture or science;
(j) Drawings or plastic works of a scientific or technical character;
(k) Photographic works including works produced by a process analogous to photography;
lantern slides;
(l) Audiovisual works and cinematographic works and works produced by a process analogous
to cinematography or any process for making audio-visual recordings;
(m) Pictorial illustrations and advertisements;
(n) Computer programs; and
(o) Other literary, scholarly, scientific and artistic works.
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.
DERIVATIVE WORKS
Derivative Works
The following derivative works shall also be protected by copyright:
(a) Dramatizations, translations, adaptations, abridgments, arrangements, and other alterations
of literary or artistic works; and
(b) 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.
The works referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b) of Subsection 173.1 shall be protected
as a 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 copy right consisting merely of the right of reproduction of the
typographical arrangement of the published edition of the work.
WORKS NOT PROTECTED
Unprotected Subject Matter
No protection shall extend, under this law, to any idea, procedure, system method or
operation, concept, principle, discovery or mere data as such, even if they are 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.
Works of the Government
No copyright shall subsist in any work of the Government of the Philippines. However,
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, among
other things, impose as a condition the payment of royalties. No prior approval or
conditions shall be required for the use of any purpose of statutes, rules and
regulations, and 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.
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.
Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions, the Government is not precluded from
receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest or otherwise;
nor shall publication or republication by the government in a public document of any
work in which copy right is subsisting 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 owners.
COPYRIGHT OR ECONOMIC RIGHTS
Copy or Economic Rights
Copyright or economic rights shall consist of the exclusive right to carry out, authorize or
prevent the following acts:
1. Reproduction of the work or substantial portion of the work;
2 Dramatization, translation, adaptation, abridgment, arrangement or other transformation of
the work;
3. The first public distribution of the original and each copy of the work by sale or other forms
of transfer of ownership;
4. Rental of the original or a copy of an audiovisual or cinematographic work, a work embodied
in a sound recording, a computer program, a compilation of data and other materials or a
musical work in graphic form, irrespective of the ownership of the original or the copy which is
the subject of the rental;
5. Public display of the original or a copy of the work;
6. Public performance of the work; and
7. Other communication to the public of the work
