After reading Enrico Dee of Byahilo ’s experience (a TV station used his photos for a TV show segment without permission) and hearing a lot on fair use and copyright during the iBlog 4, I decided to read the RA 8293 or the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines.

Enrico Dee’s follow-up post on the issue inspired me to be vigilant on these issues. It reinforced my “do not publish copyrighted materials” instinct in posting blog posts.

Just this afternoon, I read a blog post from a blog (obviously) which was written very well shall I say. I admit that I am a prejudicial person for doubting the blogger’s (behind the article) writing skills to write such an article. And so I decided to google (in lower case cause it is used as a verb) a part of the content and learned that the article posted in http://pinoyteens.net/2008/05/02/no-domestic-unrest-from-rice-problems-2/ was actually copied from an ABS-CBN news article page.

What’s worse is that the blog post did not at least acknowledge the original source. Even if he did it, he would still be violating ABS-CBN’s copyright as his action of posting the entire article in verbatim is not covered by fair use.

My message to everyone would be DO NOT POST COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL unless you’ve been granted permission of the copyright owner. It is not the copyright owner’s responsibility to indicate that he is protecting with copyright. If you can’t stop yourself, at most grab an excerpt of the article or a thumbnail of a video or picture (as long as it qualifies to fair use) linking or citing the original author.

Be vigilant, be a respectful copyright-aware citizen.