Intellectual Property and the NTC

March 29, 2006

The law is clear in that the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is not the proper forum to enforce Intellectual Property rights.  IP rightsholders should go to the courts, the police, the NBI, or the Intellectual Property Office.  For its part, the NTC is supposed to regulate the infrastructure not the content that flows within it.   Its job is to ensure that scarce State resources like radio frequencies are efficientlly allocated.  Moreover, the NTC also ensures that public services are made available by balancing the public interest and the economic interests of the service providers.  The is the extent of its mandate.  There is nothing in the law that vests the NTC with IP rights enforcement.

So, it’s irritating to see CASBAA put pressure on the NTC to curb cable piracy (see the INQ7 report).  The NTC responds (correctly) that it has no jurisdiction over IP matters.  Fair enough.  But the more problematic response is this part of the report:

In a text message to INQ7.net, Sarmiento said that the NTC is drafting an agreement with the Intellectual Property Office to address the “issue of jurisdiction.”

(more…)