Grants:PEG/WM PH/General operations 2013/Reallocation

Basic information

Official project name: Freedom of Panorama in the Philippines legal opinion
Project start date (include month, day, and year): January 1, 2014
Project completion date (include month, day, and year): June 30, 2015
Please describe the project in 1–2 sentences: Obtain a legal opinion on Freedom of Panorama's availability in Intellectual Property laws in the Philippines in order to guide freely-licensed media content contributors from the Philippines in determining what is legally allowed to be uploaded in Wikimedia Commons.

Currency requested: Philippine Pesos
Amount requested in currency requested: ₱ 60,000
Equivalent amount in US$ on the date of this submission: US$ 1,374
List the exchange rate used to calculate the amount listed in US$: ₱43.659 = $1.00 (Exchange rate of the Philippine Central Bank as of June 11, 2014)

If this project will be executed by someone other than the primary contact for your organization, please list that person's details here:

Project lead name: Roel Balingit
Project lead username or email: roel dot balingit at wikimedia dot org dot ph
Project lead title (position), if any: Treasurer

Please briefly describe what will be accomplished if the project is successful.

Project goal

To obtain a legal opinion on "Freedom of Panorama" from Intellectual Property law experts in the Philippines and if needed a ruling from the Philippines' Intellectual Property Office.
To communicate with the administrator of Wikimedia Commons about the opinion once obtained to prevent media taken in the Philippines from being deleted/purged.
To guide Philippine media content contributors from determining what can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, without their media being deleted due to non-compliance.

Please provide a list of measurable criteria that will be used determine how successful the project is.

Measures of success: This project will be considered successful if we will:; A legal opinion from an IP Law expert/practitioner from the Philippines is acknowledged and recognized by the Wikimedia Commons community by June 30, 2015.

This section describes what will happen if this project is funded. Who will do what, and when?

The project lead has already spoken to lawyer who will seek a legal opinion on the Philippines' IP law conformity with "Freedom of Panorama" from Atty. Numeriano Rodriguez Jr., law professor, intellectual property law consultant for the USAID, founder of the Intellectual Property Coalition where he serves the general counsel[1].
If Atty. Rodriguez finds that Philippine IP laws (which are generally patterned after the United States) allows the "Freedom of Panorama" and if Wikimedia Commons administrators so warrants, his opinion will be brought to the Intellectual Property Office to request a formal ruling regarding the matter.

Number	Category	Item description	Unit	Number of units	Cost per unit	Total cost	Currency	Notes
1		Legal and representation fees				50,000 ($1,145)	PHP
2		Incidental expenses	–	–	–	10,000 ($229)	PHP

In the sections below, please describe how the project is related to the Wikimedia mission and Wikimedia's strategic priorities.

If a positive opinion is obtained, it should pave the way for media about the Philippines to be retained in Wikimedia Commons.

This statement should address at least one of the strategic priorities listed here specifically. See WMF Grants Program criteria for decisionmaking.

This will help in furthering the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation "to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally" by clarifying the conformity of Philippine IP laws with the "Freedom of Panorama"

If the project will benefit a specific online community, please tell us.: This project will directly benefit contributions on Wikimedia Commons of images/media taken in the Philippines.