Unless otherwise stated, this is not an official position by Filipino Voices on NTC’s push for Online Licensing.
UPDATE: According to pmgomez on plurk who pointed to this link: NTC Memo is dead.
The Filipino is searching for answers on what the Internet is and what telecommunication is for them. The proposed draft memorandum by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on 22 December 2008, “Guidelines on the Provision of Contents, Information, Applications, and Electronic Games,” is just one of many such debate. If this push by the NTC succeeds, according to Philippine Law, the NTC will find itself outside its mandate.
This post will show:
- That New Media makes it possible for anyone to be both content provider and content developer, and thus blurring the line between creator and provider.
- That the definition of content makes it utterly futile to subject online content to a licensing fee, even if Law puts it under the jurisdiction of the NTC,
- That content, meant for mobile phones or not is already governed by The Electronic Commerce Act and ergo, the primary agency ought to be the Department of Trade and Industry. As clearly all of it is a matter of commerce and not mere telecommunication infrastructure.
- That regulation already exist, but it is a different kind of regulation than what Government understands it to be.
Beyond The Electronic Commerce Act, as increasingly Filipinos go online and participate with the larger Network whether through the computer or through mobile phone, there is a clear and present danger that the Filipino’s right to Free Speech and Free Expression are trampled.
Decriminalizing defamation law as well as the formation of a non-profit Freedom Foundation to ensure Free Speech and Free Expression is clearly needed.
You may download the PDF file here: View when-running-code-in-filipino-pdf
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What does this mean? Decriminalizing defamation law.
When was the last time a UP-Diliman student threw pretend-feces on a Philippine flag? Maybe one should do it to null-out the defamation law using the mantra of “FREE SPEECH”.
If DJB were to buy a Murillo-poster of the Virgin-Mary plus Child and then he were to spray-paint the picture with a big red “OBJECT”,
and a CBCP dude gets so inflamed that he sues (and manages to convict) DJB on “—defamamation of the Catholic religion”, can they send
DJB to prison?
good job cocoy. i now understand one of your major themes: technology makes mobiles and computers the same thing.
i have a few questions, which i hope you can clear up.
pg8, story I — rtw.com
Juan opens his ecommerce store. in running this store, does he have to share revenue (revenue sharing) with the ISP, or with anybody/anything?
or does he pay a fee?
in other words, is the prevailing access regime here revenue sharing?
UP n grad, defamation law is libel law. :D according to a lawyer i had a conversation w/ it is both criminal and civil. but criminal part in my understanding is used more often.
GabbyD,
thanks.
nope his ecommerce store doesn’t share revenue with his ISP. he only pays for bandwidth like what we do when we get dsl or cable from our isp. the relationship between the RTW guy and the ISP is the same relationship I have with PLDT. i pay pldt for use of their dsl, nothing more.
great. so its true that some of the examples in your 5 examples are not examples of revenue sharing contracts between providers and networks.
again, a few questions and thanks for your indulgence. i agree with you more than not.
pg 16 — i agree; this is weird. it says its deregulated, but you have to ask them first for permission… geez… ano ba tlga kuya!?
on page 17, the part on access…
i think you are over-reaching here:
“Taken or interpreted differently it simply means government without even going to a court oflaw could ask for the content of a server.”
the text simply says that providers can access the networks based on some agreed on access agreement. and that access fees are cost based (as opposed to demand based, or as you say, willingness to pay and what they teach in bus school).
this means, they want to shift from revenue sharing (where it exists) to a fixed fee access agreement, kinda like rtw.com.
do you agree?
GabbyD,
yeah on the stuff they say it’s deregulated but what they really want is that it isn’t. it’s really… insane.
re: taken or interpreted different…
the circular said: “Networks, systems and/or facilities providers shall provide access to contents, information, applications and/or electronic games providers upon request and based on an access agreement. Access to the networks, systems and/or facilities of duly authorized providers by registered contents, information, applications and/or electronic games providers shall be mandatory.”
to me, it isn’t about revenue sharing. i don’t know if i read it incorrectly but to me it reads that should government require access, they can just ask for it. Like the NTC picks up the phone and calls PLDT, we want to peak at your records or we want to see the server.
as for revenue sharing… i am of the opinion that the NTC has no mandate to determine revenue sharing at all.
1) to do so, is regulating it when they said that it is deregulated.
2) the electronic commerce act specifically gives the DTI lead. The NTC to me, should focus more on the infrastructure and not about the economics of the network.
oh, i just want emphasize that the laws the NTC says it is following, isn’t the Electronic Commerce Act. They make no mention of it at all in their circular, when clearly that’s the law pertinent to what they want done. And the law says to my understanding is that they’re not guys who need to worry about it.
It shall be foolhardy for the National Telecommunications Commission to encroach beyond its legal borders on what it is mandated to do.
It has absolutely no mandate to interfere in content online because first of all, it cannot have the capacity to police the web.
The fact that it has to confine itself with territorial jurisdiction, then it cannot catch any or all of this so-called burst of the dot.com bubble.
It is best that it focuses itself only on everything about telecommunications as we ordinarily understand them to be.
They curtail: freedom of speech, press and
movement. What’s next ?
Cocoy, here, lectures all of us on the broad sweep of the development of today’s internet culture in which he himself is clearly steeped, bringing out all of the salient (and iconic) historical developments that I can think of (and more) and interweaving current manifestations of it. Nicely done.
Nick,
Thanks :D
I don’t think that because the government does not have the capacity to do so, they should not do so.
Let me share an existing example. Thousands of bloggers are getting income from their blogs. Should the government not impose taxes on online revenues because it’s hard to do so? Who here pays their taxes from their Adsense earnings? We know it’s against the law, a criminal act (tax evasion) but everybody gets away with it.
Marianne,
I’m not saying that at all. i clearly wrote that just because the internet is different, doesn’t mean it can not be regulated. it is just regulated differently from what government thinks regulation is.
in fact, the E-Commerce Law has provisions for that. To treat E-Commerce like any brick and mortar business. Hence– it is a matter of the DTI. Hence it can be taxed by VAT, from my humble understanding.
That said, would you believe that California– yes, where Silicon Valley is, isn’t taxing digital technologies? http://www.calchamber.com/GovernmentRelations/IssueReports/Documents/IssuesSummaries/09-IssueSummariesE-CommerceTaxation.pdf
That’s California. The California Chamber of Commerce is Against it. They’ve more revenue coming in from digital properties than the Philippines has. Their digital economy is thriving, whereas in the Philippines, it isn’t.
basic Economics tells us we should nurture these industries and not kill it before they get a chance to get off ground. it is just short sighted to tax these industries right now.