Palace: Govt to formulate stand on US anti-piracy measures

With an alleged threat of censorship from pending US anti-piracy legislation not quite over yet, Malacañang is planning to discuss with technology officials the Philippine government’s stand on the bills.   Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said Palace officials will coordinate with the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and get its view on the matter.   “We will coordinate first with the Information and Communication Technology office under the DOST on their view,” she said on government-run dzRB radio.   Valte said the Palace is aware of the concerns of several Philippine IT professionals on the matter.   She said the government has also seen the campaigns against the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).   “We are aware of the concerns of several of our IT professionals, [and] because of this, we’ve seen the ongoing SOPA campaign. We will have to discuss this with our Information and Communication Technology (ICT) officials,” she said.   Earlier, US lawmakers indefinitely postponed proceedings on the two bills after major Internet companies staged an online protest by blacking out parts of prominent websites.   The bills aimed to curb access to overseas websites that traffic in pirated content and counterfeit products, such as movies and music.   But several sectors also raised fears that legitimate websites could end up in legal jeopardy.   Earlier this week, protests hit the Internet, turning Wikipedia and many other popular websites dark for 24 hours. Google, Facebook, Twitter and others protested the proposed legislation but did not shut down.   Even in the Philippines, Wikimedia Philippines said that while the SOPA will protect American intellectual property rights against pirates, it will do so at the expense of a far greater value – the freedom of expression of Internet users.   In a statement, it also voiced similar concerns about another pending US bill, the PIPA.   “(T)he passage of SOPA and PIPA will absolutely reverberate beyond America’s borders and will seriously put in question the continued viability of the Internet as a bastion of free speech and expression,” it said.   “In the interest of protecting American intellectual property against pirates, we end up sacrificing a far-greater value: the freedom of Internet users to express their thoughts and ideas in media forms that aim to foster global understanding and the bridging of diverse political opinion, cultural patrimony and intellectual discourse. And sacrificing this value is something Wikimedia Philippine would not accede to,” it added. — LBG, GMA News