Copyright law of Spain

Article 13 provides that the following official works are not covered by copyright protection:

• Laws and reglementary dispositions (disposiciones legales o reglamentarias), either approved or awaiting approval (y sus correspondientes proyectos)
• Court judgements (resoluciones de los órganos jurisdiccionales)
• Acts, agreements, deliberations and rulings of public bodies (actos, acuerdos, deliberaciones y dictámenes de los organismos públicos)
• Official translations of any of the above (las traducciones oficiales de todos los textos anteriores)

Images are only concerned by this exception to copyright protection when they form an integral part of any of the above, for example the diagrams in a patent: otherwise the copyright is held by the author of the image (e.g. the photographer).

Registration of a protected work is optional, but a Register of Intellectual Property (Registro de la Propiedad Intelectual) exists (see "External links") for authors who wish to take advantage of it. Registration provides prima facie evidence of creation and authorship (art. 140.3, renumbered to art. 145.3 by Ley 5/1998).

The main dispositions concerning the duration of copyright are contained in Title III, Chapter 1, as modified. In general, copyright protection in Spain lasts for the life of the author plus seventy years (art. 26). Collective works are protected for seventy years following publication (art. 28.2), as are pseudonymous and anonymous works unless the identity of the author becomes known (art. 27.2). It always assigns copyright to the author and he or she is not allowed to disclaim it. Posthumous works are protected for seventy years following publication provided they are published within seventy years of the death of the author. All of these time periods are calculated starting from 1 January following death or publication (art. 30). In the case of authors that died before December 7, 1987,the exploitations rights last for the time granted by the 1879 law, which granted a term of 80 years, but it is not clear if the 1 January rules applies in this case[1]

As in other countries, there are a number of societies which collectively manage the licensing of different types of work and the collection of royalties on behalf of copyright holders. These societies (entidades de gestión) are governed by Title IV of Book Three of the Intellectual Property Law (arts. 142–152, renumbered as arts. 147–157 by the Ley 5/1998), which provides for their authorisation by the Ministry of Culture. The largest such copyright management society is the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE), which was established by law in 1941 as the Sociedad General de Autores de España and which had a de facto monopoly on the collective management of copyright royalties before the passage of the 1987 Intellectual Property Law.

The rights to be identified as author and to the respect of the integrity of the work are perpetual, and may be exercised after the author's death by his/her executors, heirs or (by default) by the State (arts. 15, 16). The rights to modify the work and to withdraw the work from commercial exploitation may only be exercised by the author during his/her lifetime (this is implicit in the wording of 5º and 6º of art. 14).

A performer is any person who "presents, sings, reads, recites, interprets or exercutes a work in any form," including the stage director and the conductor of an orchestra (art. 105). Performers have the exclusive rights to authorize:

• the recording and/or reproduction of the performance (arts. 106, 107)
• the communication of the performance to the public (art. 108)
• the distribution of recordings or reproductions of the performance (art. 109)

These rights last for fifty years from either the date of the performance or the date of publication of a recording of the performance, whichever is the later (art. 112). The period of protection runs to 31 December of the relevant year. Performers also have the moral right to have their name associated with their performances, and to object to distortion or mutilation of their performances: these moral rights last for the life of the performer and for twenty years after his or her death.

The person who makes a sound recording has the exclusive right to authorize the reproduction, the communication to the public and the distribution of that recording (arts. 114–117). These rights last for fifty years after the date of the recording or the date of publication, whichever is the later, and run to 31 December of the relevant year (art. 119). Corporate persons can be the holders of these rights if the recording was first made under their "initiative and responsibility".

An "audiovisual recording" (grabación audiovisual) is any recording of a scene or sequence of images, with or without sound, whether or not it counts as an "audiovisual work" (obra audiovisual) (art. 120): an example would be the images from a security camera. The person who takes the "initiative and responsibility" to make such a recording has the exclusive right to authorize its reproduction, communication to the public and distribution (arts. 121–123). These rights extend to photographs taken during the production of an audiovisual recording (art. 124), and last for fifty years after the production of the recording or its publication, whichever is the later, running to 31 December of the relevant year (art. 125). They are independent of the copyright in the audiovisual work. Corporate persons can be the holders of these rights. All rights fall under Jurisdiction of local law

Broadcasting organisations have the exclusive right to authorise (art. 126):

• the recording of their broadcasts in any form;
• the reproduction of their broadcasts in any form;
• the retransmission of their broadcasts;
• the communication of the broadcasts to a paying public.
• the distribution of recordings of their broadcasts.

These rights last for fifty years from the date of broadcast, running to 31 December of the relevant year (art. 127).

The sui generis protection of databases was instituted by the Law 5/1998 of 6 March 1998 incorporating Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996 on the Legal Protection of Databases. The provisions are contained in Title VIII of Book Two (arts. 133–137 under the revised numbering), but are not included in the 1996 consolidated version of the Intellectual Property Law. Database rights specifically protect the "substantial investment" in the form of "finance, time, energy or effort", assessed "either qualitatively or quantitatively", which was necessary to create the database (art. 133.1).

The maker of the database, who may be a corporate person, can prevent a user from extracting "all or a substantial portion, evaluated qualitatively or quantitatively," of the contents of the database, either through a single access or through multiple accesses (art. 133). The user may not do anything which "conflicts with the normal exploitation of the database" or which "unreasonably prejudices the legitimate interests of the maker of the database" (art. 134) There are (limited) exceptions for the private use of non-electronic databases, for teaching and research and for public security and for administrative or judicial procedures (art. 135).

Database rights last for fifteen years from the completion of the database or from its publication, whichever is the later, although "substantial changes" to the database start a new period of protection: the protection runs to 31 December of the relevant year (art. 136). Database rights are independent of any copyright which might exist in the database or its contents (art. 137); for example, a database which relied on a subjective choice of material could qualify for copyright as a compilation, and a database of copyrighted works (for example, Wikipedia) does not override the copyright existing on individual entries.

The law explicitly allows to make private copies of copyrighted work without the author's consent for published works if the copy is not for commercial use. To compensate authors, the law establishes a compensatory tax associated with certain recording media (CDs, DVDs, cassettes), managed through societies of authors and editors (as SGAE and CEDRO). Such private copies of a protected work must be made for the private use (not collective, nor lucrative) of the copier (2º of art. 31): the author is compensated by a tax on the means of reproduction (e.g. photocopiers, blank cassettes) determined at article 25. However, computer programs can not be copied except for a backup copy (art. 99.2): they can be modified for the sole use of the person performing the modification (art. 99.4). Any work can be played in a "strictly home" environment (art. 20.1) without the author's consent. The moral rights of the author can only be exercised in the respect of the rights of owners of copies of the work or of rights to its exploitation, as detailed in article 14.

Some consumer's associations and specialized lawyers contend that the current legislation allows file sharing (as with p2p networks) as this is not for profit and is for private use . Additionally, the Penal Code explicitly requires the intention of commercial profit in order to commit a crime against the Intellectual Property .

Lectures, addresses, judicial proceedings and other works of the same nature may be reproduced or communicated for the sole purpose of reporting on current events (art. 33.2). The proceedings of parliament and of public corporations may be reproduced or communicated for any purpose (art. 33.2). Works of news reporting may be reproduced in other news media, with identification of the author and remuneration (art. 33.1). Any work which can be seen or heard may be reproduced, distributed and publicly communicated for the purpose of, and only to the extent necessary for, providing information thereof in the context of reporting on current events (art. 34).

Museums, libraries and similar public or cultural institutions may make reproductions of works for the purposes of research (art. 37). "Fragments" of written, sound or audiovisual works or "isolated" plastic, photographic, figurative or analogous works may be included in another original work for the purposes of teaching or research (fines docentes o de investigación) if the following conditions are met (art. 32):

• the source work has been published
• it is included for citation or for analysis, commentary or critical judgement
• it is included with a citation of the source and the name of the author
• it is only included to the extent justified by the purposes of teaching or research

Press reviews and collections are expressly covered by the provisions of article 32.

Works may be reproduced for judicial and administrative actions (1º of art. 31). Musical works may be performed at official public ceremonies and religious services, if these are free of charge to the public and if the musicians are not specifically paid for performing the protected works (art. 38). Transcription of works may be made into Braille or another medium specific for the use of the blind, provided that the use of the copies is non-lucrative (3º of art. 31). The executors or heirs of a deceased author can be forced to publish the works which remained unpublished during the author's lifetime if their refusal to do so is judged contrary to article 44 of the Constitution (art. 40, Intellectual Property Law).

Works which are permanently situated in parks, streets, squares or public routes may be reproduced in paintings, drawings, photographs and by audiovisual means (art. 35). Parodies of a work are permitted without the consent of the original author provided that there is no risk of confusion with the original work and that no damage is caused (ni se infiera un daño) to the original work or to its author (art. 39).

The first four of these laws are included in the consolidated version of the Intellectual Property Law.

Works by Spanish authors became eligible for U.S. copyright by a Presidential Proclamation of 10 July 1895 under the authority of The Chase Act of 1891, later section 9(b) of the Copyright Act of 1909. All Spanish works which had not entered the public domain in Spain through expiry of their copyright protection, that is all works first published in Spain by authors who are living or who died on or after 1 January 1926, were automatically accorded U.S. copyrights (if they were not already protected in the U.S.) on 1 January 1996 by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994: these U.S. copyrights run for 95 years from the date of publication (regardless of the Spanish copyright term) for works first published before 1 January 1978 and for collective or anonymous works, and for the life of the author plus seventy years (identical to the Spanish copyright term) for other works.