GR 184661 Zalameda (Digest)
G.R. No. 184661 , February 25, 2025
FILIPINO SOCIETY OF COMPOSERS AND PUBLISHERS, PETITIONER, VS. WOLFPAC COMMUNICATIONS, INC., RESPONDENT.
FACTS
Petitioner Filipino Society of Composers and Publishers (FILSCAP) demanded that respondent Wolfpac Communications, Inc. (Wolfpac) secure performance licenses and pay royalties for the use of musical works from FILSCAP’s repertoire. The use in question involved a “pre-listening feature” on Wolfpac’s website (http://ring.smart.com.ph), which allowed prospective consumers to listen to a 20-second portion of a song before downloading it as a ringback tone. Wolfpac argued that this feature did not constitute a public performance but was a “communication to the public,” as the samples could be accessed by users from a place and time individually chosen by them.
ISSUE
Whether the act of allowing potential consumers to listen to sample ringtones via a website’s “pre-listening feature” constitutes a public performance or a communication to the public, and whether such an act is protected under the doctrine of fair use.
RULING
The ponencia (main decision) declared that the pre-listening function on Wolfpac’s website amounted to a “communication to the public” but was a protected activity under the doctrine of “fair use.” In his Separate Concurring and Dissenting Opinion, Justice Zalameda concurred with the disposition of the case insofar as it preserved the distinction between the economic rights of public performance (under Section 171.6 of the Intellectual Property Code) and communication to the public (under Section 171.3). He agreed that the pre-listening feature was a form of communication to the public, not public performance, as differentiated in the landmark case of FILSCAP v. Anrey, Inc. The opinion elaborated that the right to communicate to the public, particularly the “making available to the public” right derived from Article 8 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty, covers acts in the digital environment where members of the public may access works from a place and time individually chosen by them, such as the interactive, on-demand internet feature in this case. Justice Zalameda expressed reservations only regarding the ponencia‘s discussion implications relative to the right involved in radio-over-loudspeakers.