Overview Of Copyright And Neighboring Rights In Colombia

The copyright legislation in Colombia is up to date with the legal international legal standards developed within the World Intellectual Property Organization, for most of the multilateral and regional agreements, such as the the TRIPS agreement, the WCT and WPPT.

1. Constitutional nature and normative sources

   Article 61 of the Constitution establishes the State's obligation to provide protection to intellectual property. This constitutional framework is developed by a comprehensive set of laws for the protection of copyright in Colombia following the standards set in the Berne Convention. Colombia, through Law 48 of 1975, signed the Universal Copyright Convention and the Rome Convention of 1961. In 1982, Law 23 of that year developed internal regime the rights described in the conventions referred. During the following years, Colombia signed diverse treaties and regional agreements on the subject, including Decision 351 of the Andean Community1, the TRIPS agreement, the WCT and WPPT.

   In the context of trade liberalization and undertaken by the country in recent years services, Colombia has acquired a series of bilateral obligations, which will involve a modification of the current system of protection of copyright and related rights; for example, Colombia has yet to regulate the liability of internet service providers in accordance with the provisions of the FTA between Colombia and the United States, as discussed later.

2. Protection

   2.1. Authors of literary and scientific works.

   Law 23 of 1982, consistent with the Berne Convention grants protection to authors and owners of moral and economic rights of literary, scientific and artistic works. As regulated in the continental tradition, Law 23, Decision 351 and the Berne Convention, the legislation gives protection to moral and economic rights.

   Moral rights recognizes the paternity of a work, the right to retain an unpublished or to disclose it and the right to oppose changes to the work that violate the honor or reputation of the author2. Decision 351 and Law 23 provides that these rights are inherent, inalienable and imprescriptible to the author. In terms of duration, Law 23 and Article 30 of Decision 351, tacitly, establishes that moral rights are perpetual.

   Economic rights, according to Law 23 and Decision 351, gives the right holder the exclusive right to reproduce and prevent reproduction of a work, make a translation, adaptation, adjustment or modification of the work and communicate...