Deaths, PAL, and copyright

Continuing last week’s list of my friends who have left the earth before me:

This time of year, I remember the departed members of the Manila Critics Circle (Leonidas Benesa, Miguel A. Bernad SJ, Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta, Doreen G. Fernandez, and Alfrredo Navarro Salanga),

my bridge-playing friends (Enrique Belo, Linda Campos, Phyllis Harvey, Syed Zeyaul Hoda, Paquito Javier, Puring Javier, Polly Nestle, Dioscoro Papa, Helen Saad, Rudi Santiago, Vic Santiago, Helen Tubangui, Teresa Yuchengco, Efren Zaide, and Sachiko Zobel),

my fellow Fulbrighters (Corazon Agrava, Rolando Dizon FSC, Rafael Donato FSC, Marcelo Fernan, and Andrew Gonzalez FSC),

my fellow UPSCANs (Francisco Abao Jr., Ramon Casas, Jimmy Cruz, Violeta Calvo-Drilon, Mervyn Encanto, Generoso Gil, Jesus Javelona, Louie Lagdameo, Bienvenido M. Lim Jr., Raul Nery, Jaime Nierras, Jaime Ong, Emmeline Quinio, Johnny Ramos, Ruben Rivera, Wilfrido Santiano, Angelica Soriano, and Raquel Zaraspe-Ordoñez),

my colleagues in FUSE (Froilan Bacungan, Josefina Cortes, Salvador Escudero III, Alberto Muyot, and Marsh Thompson),

my fellow Former Senior Government Officials (Emy Boncodin, Sostenes Campillo Jr., Ed del Fonso, Quentin Doromal, Nixon Kua, Josefina Lichauco, Rizalino Navarro, Mario Taguiwalo, and Victor Ordoñez),

my favorite teachers (Nieves Epistola, Joseph Galdon SJ, and Gil Raval), and

my literary sister Lina Santos Cortes Raquion (daughter of my literary father Bienvenido N. Santos).

Please say a special prayer for my mother Pacita Ronquillo Cruz, in her youth a short story writer, and my father Ricardo Castillo Cruz, a scientist who loved to read.

KUDOS TO PAL: On my flight back from Seoul last Friday, I foolishly left my tablet on my seat. After having left the airport and realizing my mistake, I steeled myself to losing not just the tablet, but the data inside it.

I was so happy when Ed Balisacan of Philippine Airlines called me on my cellphone and asked if I had left a tablet on my seat. The flight crew had given him the tablet. He had opened the tablet, seen the pdf of my online check in, and found my number in their database.

I returned to the airport, got to the office where lost items were stored, and was promptly given my tablet back.

Kudos to the flight staff and the ground staff of Philippine Airlines! Thank you for saving me from having not only to buy another computer, but to reconstruct what I had written on the tablet during my trip.

COPYRIGHT ISSUES: I was in Seoul for the World Congress and Annual General Meeting of the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations (IFRRO). I went as Chair of the Filipinas Copyright Licensing Society (FILCOLS). With me was Alvin Buenaventura, the Executive Director of FILCOLS (who actually does all the work for our organization).

During the Congress, Alvin and I were able to initiate new bilateral agreements with Brazil, Germany, Ghana, Korea Society of Authors (KOSA), Mulawi, Spain, and Switzerland. We also formally signed a previously-negotiated agreement with the UK.

The initial agreements we made last week add to the list of completed agreements made in earlier years with Argentina, Australia, Colombia, Denmark, Georgia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Kenya, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea (KORRA), Trinidad and Tobago, USA, and Vietnam.

Bilateral agreements basically mean that we (meaning, FILCOLS) are in charge of protecting and promoting the printed and digital books, literary texts, newspaper articles, photographs, and other copyrighted materials of the countries that have signed with us. In return, these countries protect our works in their own places.

If a person or institution in the Philippines, for example, photocopies copyrighted material from any of these countries, that person or institution has to pay us an appropriate fee. We then forward that fee to the country, which then takes care of sending the fee to the author, publisher, or photographer that owns the copyright. (Of course, we deduct a minimal management fee, and so do our counterparts in the other countries.)

So far, we have given many Filipino authors and publishers money that comes from various countries. Many people around the world photocopy or reprint works by Filipino writers. These people around the world pay our writers for the privilege of copying our works. In return, we need to pay the writers in other countries for the use of their works.

Since the government has named FILCOLS as its official and only copyright collecting organization, and since the Court of Appeals in the USA recently said that universities are not allowed to use copyrighted materials without compensating the owners, we will soon contact our universities to ask them to institute a system in their schools of having teachers and students pay for the use of copyrighted materials from other countries (as well as from our own authors, publishers, and newspapers).

It would really be a shame if foreigners pay our authors reproduction fees and our own students and teachers do not.

The Department of Education has taken the lead in respecting copyright. DepEd has paid FILCOLS for the use of local and foreign copyrighted materials in the teaching modules of the K to 12 curriculum.

Private schools are hereby warned that, if they do not pay for photocopying or reprinting copyrighted materials, they will soon face the wrath not only of FILCOLS and IFRRO, but of our own authors and publishers.