PHILIPPINES Trends and Developments Contributed by: Katrina Doble, Danielle Francesca San Pedro and Edward King Chua, Villaraza & Angangco
others remain silent, leaving creators vulnerable to exploitation. In the Philippines, as AI adoption accelerates, questions surrounding the fair use of copyrighted works for AI training are becom - ing increasingly relevant, highlighting the impor - tance of developing guidelines that protect both innovation and creators’ rights. Fair use in the Philippines In the Philippines, fair use is governed by Sec - tions 184 and 185 of the Philippine Intellectual Property Code (IP Code). Section 185 provides a general fair use clause, while Section 184 lists specific statutory fair use exemptions that either do or do not require the further application of the general fair use principle. Other limitations to copyright are also listed under Sections 186 to 189 of the IP Code. To provide clarity on statutory fair use provi - sions, the Philippine Intellectual Property Office (IPOPHL) introduced the 2024 Fair Use Guide - lines on 4 March 2024. These guidelines define the conditions that must be met before a specific use of a copyrighted work may fall under one of the statutory fair use provisions under Section 184 of the IP Code. The guidelines, crafted by the Bureau of Copyright and Related Rights, are structured into three key parts. • Statutory Fair Use Without Need for Further Application of General Principles: this section covers specific exceptions explicitly provided by law, such as private and non-profit perfor - mances, news reporting, judicial proceedings and works intended for the visually impaired. These instances qualify as fair use without requiring further assessment. • Statutory Fair Use Requiring Application of General Principles: for scenarios such as quoting works for news reports, academic purposes and government-produced materi -
als, the general principles of fair use must be further applied. In these cases, the four-factor test is used to evaluate whether the use quali - fies as fair. • Other Limitations on Copyright: this discuss - es additional limitations found in the IP Code outside of Section 184, such as the use of works of architecture, private reproduction of works, reprographic reproduction for libraries, and adaptations of computer programs. Considering, however, that AI-driven creative work does not appear to fall under any of the statutory fair use provisions, the general fair use principle under Section 185 of the IP Code – which is not expounded on in the IPOPHL’s 2024 Fair Use Guidelines – must be further studied to determine whether the use of copyrighted mate - rial as datasets for machine learning constitutes fair use. Section 185 of the IP Code, which was largely derived from Title 17, Section 107 of the US Copyright Act of 1976, deals with the general fair use principle and the four factors used to determine whether or not fair use applies to a particular use of a copyrighted work. Section 185 provides that the fair use of a copyrighted work for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including a limited num - ber of copies for classroom use), scholarship, research and similar purposes is not an infringe - ment of copyright. Similarly, decompilation – ie, the reproduction of the code and translation of the forms of a computer program to achieve the interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs – may also constitute fair use under Section 185.
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