WHAT ARE THE WORKS COVERED BY COPYRIGHT PROTECTION UNDER THE

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CODE?

Section 172 of the IP Code lists the works covered by copyright protection from the
moment of their creation, namely:

1. (a) Books, pamphlets, articles and other writings

2. (b) Periodicals and newspapers
3. (c) Lectures, sermons, addresses, dissertations prepared for oral delivery,
whether or not reduced in writing or other material form
4. (d) Letters
5. (e) Dramatic or dramatico-musical compositions; choreographic works or
entertainment in dumb shows
6. (f) Musical compositions, with or without words
7. (g) Works of drawing, painting, architecture, sculpture, engraving, lithography or
other work of art; models or designs for works of art
8. (h) Original ornamental designs or models for articles of manufacture, whether or
not registrable as an industrial design, and other works of applied art
9. (i) Illustrations, maps, plans, sketches, charts and three-dimensional works
relative to geography, topography, architecture or science
10. (j) Drawings or plastic works of a scientific or technical character
11. (k) Photographic works including works produced by a process analogous to
photography; lantern slides
12. (l) Audiovisual works and cinematographic works and works produced by a
process analogous to cinematography or any process for making audio-visual
recordings
13. (m) Pictorial illustrations and advertisements
14. (n) Computer programs
15. (o) Other literary, scholarly, scientific and artistic works.

What works are not protected by copyright under Philippine law?

Copyright protection does not cover:

1. Idea, procedure, system method or operation, concept, principle, discovery or

mere data as such, even if they are expressed, explained, illustrated or
embodied in a work;
2. News of the day and other miscellaneous facts having the character of mere
items of press information;
3. Official text of a legislative, administrative or legal nature, as well as any official
translation thereof;
4. Work of the Philippine Government, unless there was a prior approval by the
appropriate government agency; and
5. Statutes, rules and regulations, and speeches, lectures, sermons, addresses,
and dissertations, pronounced, read or rendered in courts of justice, before
administrative agencies, in deliberative assemblies and in meetings of public
character.