I was going to talk about my recent trip to Geneva and the future collaborations that the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines or IPOPHL will have with other IP Offices around the world. However, I have great news that I want to talk about that can’t wait.
Last Thursday, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines signed a contract with artist Matteo Guidicelli as the new face of our campaign to fight piracy and promote a culture of respect for the intellectual property or IP rights of our people.
As the first IP Ambassador of Anti-Piracy, Guidicelli is the right choice in amplifying our efforts to raise IP awareness among Filipinos, especially the youth.
Aside from being a well-known celebrity influencer and endorser, this person is a talented actor and music artist who knows the struggles of his fellow creatives in protecting their creations from content thieves. He is also known for his love of country, being a reservist in the Philippine Army.
This year-long partnership is a collaboration between IPOPHL and the new ambassador as Guidicelli and his manager, Viva Artists Agency Inc., will create video campaigns that will embody IPOPHL’s anti-piracy message.
Meanwhile, IPOPHL will support the new ambassador, Viva, and other select piracy-affected industries in protecting their IP assets more effectively by conducting a free learning event for them.
More importantly, Guidicelli has committed to spreading the anti-piracy message on his own social media channels and to his followers as part of his personal advocacy. As he stated during the contract signing, Guidicelli has always wanted to do more for the Filipino youth ever since he joined the Philippine Army as a reservist.
Meanwhile, signing up Guidicelli as IPOPHL’s newest ally is both a joint project with the World Intellectual Property Organization’s or WIPO Respect For IP Division and a crucial step in the government’s efforts to address piracy. This is because as we face cruel economic and employment losses in the wake of piracy, we also have to change the mindset of our people that piracy is something normal and even harmless.
In a survey we did with the WIPO in 2021, many respondents believed that pirated copies of music, video games, TV series, and movies did not harm anyone.
A key point in the survey was that of the various age groups we surveyed, it was the youngest group — as the heaviest Internet users — that patronized pirated digital content the most because of the ease of accessing free content and because their peers were also doing it anyway.
However, just because others are doing it doesn’t make it right. The Asia Video Industry Association estimates that about $120 million, or nearly P7 billion, is taken away from legitimate subscription-based video-on-demand players.
Meanwhile, Media Partners Asia estimates that revenue losses from piracy of online videos reached $781 million in 2022. In employment, it estimates that piracy jeopardized nearly 12,000 jobs in the same year.
These figures show how piracy is damaging to our creative economy, which injected into it P1.6 trillion or 7.3 percent of our GDP in 2022. Piracy also threatens the livelihood of 6.98 million Filipino creative industry workers and, of course, their families.
IPOPHL is optimistic that with the support of Guidicelli, we can change this mindset, given that our efforts that had the most visibility and potential to change behavior were linked to our celebrity IP ambassador for MSMEs, RJ Ledesma.
We are also thankful for the support given by WIPO and Guidicelli, which will help us effectively reach more Filipinos — particularly the youth — in campaigning for the core messages of respecting copyright and what the public can do to help stop piracy.