Even if you decided to reshare a viral social media post, using CTTO (credits to the owner) is considered illegal, according to the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL).
In an interview with ABS-CBN News, IPOPHL director-general Rowel Barba said that using CTTO or other similar terms does not proper attribution to the original owner of the post. “Dapat kukunin niya yung permiso bago niya ilalathala o gagamitin yung orihinal na content,” Barba said.
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In line with that, Barba urges creators to protect their original and innovative works through copyrights. The same applies to filing patents for inventions. While the use of CTTO and other similar terms is deemed illegal, there’s much debate to fair use of shared content.
According to the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, fair use is defined as the use of copyrighted material when it is used for “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching including limited number of copies for classroom use, scholarship, research, and similar purposes.”
The use of CTTO has been a big issue with campaign jingles, where some politicians would tweak copyrighted materials for their jingles without asking permission from the original artist of the said materials.
