Law 1915 of 2018: Amendments in copyright matters.

Circular No. 1 July 18, 2018

Law 1915 of 2018: Whereby provisions on copyright and related rights are amended and added.

Last July 12, 2018, Law 1915 was issued, by means of which provisions on copyright and related rights are modified and added. This law touches on three essential points: i) to equate copyright with related rights of performers, phonogram producers and broadcasting organizations; ii) to regulate in depth orphan works; and iii) to update the regulation of copyright and related rights in order to provide greater security to owners in technological and internet matters.

The text begins with an addition to Article 10 of Law 23 of 1982, on the subject of presumed ownership, which establishes that the person under whose name or pseudonym the work has been disclosed shall be presumed to be the owner of the copyright.

Article 3 adds powers to authors to prohibit or authorize temporary or permanent reproduction in electronic form; the same protection is given to artists and holders of related rights with respect to their performances. It also deals with the exhaustion of the right, a subject already extensively developed at the international level, by stipulating that the exclusive right to authorize or prohibit commercial rental and public lending is not exhausted with the copies sold.

A point to be taken into account is the increase in the protection of copyrights and related rights when the owner of an artistic or literary work is a legal entity, since such protection was increased to 70 years as from the end of the calendar year of the first authorized publication of the work, and if within the 50 years following the creation of the work there has been no authorized publication, the term of protection will be the same 70 years but counted as from the end of the calendar year of the creation of the work.

In other words, it is observed that the new provisions seek to equate copyrights with related rights of artists, performers, phonogram producers and broadcasting organizations.

On the other hand, new sanctions are established for acts such as violations of effective technological measures to control access to a work, and the commercialization of devices, products or components that evade such technological measures, and the alteration, commercialization and distribution, among others, of information on rights management without authorization. For the above, the law defines the concepts of effective technological measures and rights management information.

Along with these sanctions, the legislator established new exceptions and limitations for the circumvention of technological measures and the use of works in the digital world, honoring the fact that Colombia is established as one of the countries with the highest number of limitations and exceptions in this regard.

For this purpose, it was agreed, in a novel way, that the National Directorate of Copyrights will convene, every three years, a public hearing in order to periodically review the limitations and exceptions established in the law.

The new articles regulate an issue that had not been regulated in depth in the past, namely orphan works. This new law includes a whole chapter on orphan works, from their definition, use and diligent search procedure to establish a work as an orphan work, to the declaration of the end of the orphan status.

Finally, the law adds administrative authorities exercising jurisdictional functions as competent to hear disputes in the application of this law.

In case you require additional information on these or other additional articles, this Office will provide you with the necessary advice and support on the subject.