Copyright

A work is understood to be any original literary, artistic, or scientific creation expressed by any means or medium, tangible or intangible, currently known or invented in the future (this also includes computer programs, which have been assimilated into literary works).

Intellectual creations that take the form of literary, artistic, and scientific works are protected, including: books (this section includes any internal manual or protocol that the company may develop, regardless of the subject matter), training courses, brochures, architectural works, musical compositions, audiovisual works, multimedia works, databases, computer programs, websites, photographs, sculptures, paintings and drawings, plans, projects, models, etc.

In this sense, it is not ideas that are protected, but rather the way in which they are materialized.

The status of author is held by the natural person who creates the artistic, literary, or scientific work, although legal entities may benefit from the protection granted by the law in the cases expressly provided for therein (collective works).

• Natural person: the author’s lifetime plus 70 years after their death. This is calculated from January 1 of the year following their death.
• Legal entity: seventy years, calculated from the date of disclosure of the work.

An essential characteristic of copyright is that it protects an intangible asset, the work, which is not identified with its material or any other type of support, even though it needs such support to exist and/or not disappear immediately; and, of course, to be exploited.

Yes, but only exploitation rights. Moral rights are non-transferable.

Depending on the type of creation and modality of the work, the following contracts may be formalized:

• Document acknowledging ownership of the work.
• Contract for the transfer of intellectual property rights.
• Publishing contracts.
• Audiovisual work contracts.
• Production contract.
• Direction-production.
• Scriptwriting and musical composition.
• Performance.
• Distribution.
• Exhibition.
• Phonographic production contracts.
• Contracts for the creation and exhibition of photographic works.
• Contracts for the transformation of works (adaptation).
• Software contracts: licenses for use and distribution.

A collaborative work is defined as a work in which several authors contribute to its creation, with intellectual property rights being shared in the proportion determined by all the authors. The consent of all co-authors is required for the dissemination and modification of the work.

• Several people contribute to the production of a work, their contributions being inseparable and indistinguishable.
• Several people come together to write as commentators on a work. In this case, it may be that the sum total of the precepts commented on by each author does not constitute a unit that can be exploited separately, or, on the contrary, it may be a thematic unit (e.g., comments on a law).
• Several people cooperate in the creation of a work through their contributions, appearing as co-authors but without the possibility of determining which of them is responsible for each part (e.g., encyclopedia or dictionary).
• Several people produce a magazine composed of signed articles.
• Several people carry out the creation of a work and their collaboration is a unitary result (e.g., the case of a film in which the director, the authors of the script, and the authors of the musical compositions collaborate in the creation of a single work, which is the film).

The duration of exploitation rights in collaborative works shall be seventy years from the death or declaration of death of the last co-author.

There are several aspects to consider in collaborative work contracts:

• The scope of each party’s contribution and the material necessary for its execution, if necessary.
• The use that the company may make of such material.
• The obligations of the parties.
• The transfer by the collaborator to the company of all rights to the resulting work.
• Determination of the degree of transfer (exclusive, non-exclusive, etc.).
• The economic conditions for the work performed.

A collective work is understood to be a work produced under the coordination of a natural or legal person who publishes and disseminates it under their name and is made up of contributions from different authors whose personal contributions merge into a single, autonomous creation, for which it has been conceived without it being possible to attribute separately to any of them an exclusive right over the work as a whole.

The rights to the collective work shall belong to the person who publishes and disseminates it under their name, unless otherwise agreed, whether they are a natural or legal person.

A composite work is one in which the author of the new work incorporates one or more pre-existing works without the collaboration of the author of those works, and therefore, where applicable, requires their authorization. The incorporation of pre-existing works into the new work may be done by reproducing all or part of them or by transforming them.

A derivative work is one that involves the transformation of a pre-existing work, such as updates, annotations, compendiums and extracts, translations, adaptations, revisions, summaries, and musical arrangements. The author of the pre-existing work may also be the author of the derivative work. If this is not the case, their consent or authorization will be required for the transformation.

The following publications are excluded from legal deposit:

• Postage stamps.
• Publications produced by religious orders that do not exceed the scope of the religious community.
• Social documents, such as certificates, diplomas, etc.
• Commercial printed matter that is not accompanied by artistic engravings and explanatory texts of a technical or literary nature.
• Office printed matter.

The moral right of the author is a highly personal right, which is inalienable and cannot be waived, and whose purpose is to protect the author as a person through their work. It includes the right of disclosure, the right to authorship of the work, the right to integrity, the right of modification, the right of withdrawal or repentance, and the right of access.

The deposit number consists of the following elements:

• The express mention of legal deposit.
• The acronym corresponding to each province or locality.
• The registration number corresponding to the deposit (at the end of each year, the numbering is closed and starts again at the beginning of the following year).
• The year the deposit was made.

The author has the right to disclose the work and decide when and how such disclosure will take place.

The purpose of this measure is to control national bibliographic production, thereby establishing a solid national cultural heritage. Legal deposit also has the secondary benefit of providing proof of the existence and date of publication of a work.

The deposit must be made once the work is completed, before its distribution or sale, and both the printer, in the case of publications, and the producer, in the case of other types of works, are required to do so (both at their request and for the constitution of the number).

The disclosure of a work is understood to be any expression of the work that, with the consent of the author, makes it accessible to the public for the first time in any form.

Legal deposit is the obligation to deposit copies of publications of all kinds (books, periodicals, maps, plans, brochures of more than 4 pages and less than 50, images, etc.), reproduced in any medium and produced in the national territory for dissemination purposes, in one or more specified agencies.

The author has the moral right to be recognized as the author of the work resulting from their ingenuity, that is, the right to be associated with their work. This implies the mention of the author’s name, signature, or sign on each copy of the work. Likewise, this right allows the author to demand the mention of their professional titles, while always respecting the will of the creator of the work. The right of paternity entails the power to disclose the work under a pseudonym or anonymously, concealing their identity.

It compensates for intellectual property rights not received due to the reproduction of protected works or performances for the exclusive private use of the copier. Finally, anyone interested can access the content of the work that is registered, given the public nature of the Registry. However, due to the peculiarities of these works, the information provided to third parties is very limited (e.g., the author’s identity, the type of work, or the date of submission). The content of the work is not disclosed.

The authors of original works of plastic art shall be entitled to receive from the seller 3% of the price of any resale of such originals at public auction, in a commercial establishment, or with the intervention of a dealer or commercial agent, provided that the price reaches at least €1,803.04.

The author has the right to demand respect for the integrity of the work and to prevent any distortion, modification, alteration, or attack on it that would harm their legitimate interests or damage their reputation. This implies that the work must be known as it was conceived by the author and maintained in that state until the author decides to make modifications to it.

• Right to participate in the resale of plastic originals.
• Right to remuneration for private copying.

The author has the right to modify their work, provided that they respect the rights acquired by third parties and the requirements for the protection of cultural assets, if the work has been declared as such. Modification consists of substantial correction and improvement, as well as incidental changes to the work, provided that they are essential and respect the essence of the work. It is subject to a series of limitations by virtue of the rights acquired by third parties.

The author has the right to withdraw the work from the market when it no longer conforms to their moral or intellectual convictions, after having contracted its dissemination, and after compensating the holders of exploitation rights for damages.

Remuneration rights, unlike exclusive rights, do not entitle the holder to authorize or prohibit acts of exploitation of their work or protected service by the user, although they do oblige the user to pay a monetary amount for the acts of exploitation they carry out, which is determined either by law or, failing that, by the general rates of the management entities.

The author has the right to access a unique or rare copy of the work, when it is in the possession of another, in order to exercise the right of disclosure or any other right that corresponds to them.

Economic or exploitation rights must be considered as a whole, that is, as all the possibilities of exploitation or economic enjoyment derived from the use of the work, covering any use. They are closely related to moral rights, since they allow the use of the work to be excluded or authorized, that is, the author or his successor in title decides who may use his work and who may not.

Exploitation or economic rights are divided into two groups: exclusive rights and simple remuneration rights.

The author has the right to modify or transform a work, thereby acquiring ownership of the derivative or composite work resulting from such transformation (for example, a version of a song).

The author has the right to allow a plurality of people to have access to the work without prior distribution to each of them (for example, a painting displayed in a gallery exhibition).

The author has the right to make their work (original or copies) available to the public through sale, rental, loan, or any other means.

This is the usual form of exploitation for certain fixations, such as books, brochures, records, videos, and any other work that is incorporated into a tangible medium.

Exclusive rights include:

• The right of reproduction.
• Right of distribution.
• Right of public communication.
• Right of transformation.

The author has the right to fix the work in a medium that allows its communication and the obtaining of copies of all or part of it. This is the right to merely produce copies of the work, to reproduce it.