Understanding Copyright Law: Exploitation Rights and Public Domain
Copyright Law: Exploitation Rights and Public Domain
Article 17 of the Intellectual Property Law (LPI) addresses the right to exploit a work. This right may be assigned to others, but this assignment does not deprive the author of the right to publish their work, as stated in Articles 22 and 23.
Articles 24 and 25 of the LPI regulate specific rights, including the right to receive a share of the resale of a work by public auction (this excludes works of applied art such as photographs or craftsmanship). Article 25 of the LPI regulates the right to fair compensation for private copying of books and similar materials, sound recordings, video recordings, and other audio, visual, and audiovisual works. The beneficiaries of these rights are the authors of works, publishers, producers of phonograms or video recordings, and performing artists whose performances have been fixed in such phonograms or video recordings.
Duration of Exploitation Rights
The exploitation rights are extinguished after a period of time, typically 70 years.
As a general rule, the exploitation rights of a work last for the lifetime of the author plus 70 years after their death.
In the case of anonymous or pseudonymous works, the exploitation rights expire 70 years from the date of disclosure.
For collaborative works, the 70-year period is counted from the death of the last surviving co-author.
The exploitation of collective works (those created under the initiative and coordination of a natural or legal person who edits and discloses it under their name, and which are constituted by the contributions of different authors) will expire in 70 years.
Finally, for works published in parts, the 70-year period is calculated individually for each part.
Public Domain
Once the exploitation rights are extinguished, the work enters the “public domain.” This means that such works may be used by anyone, while respecting the authorship and integrity of the work (Article 41).
Management Entities of Rights
Articles 147 and subsequent articles of the LPI favor the existence of a system of “collective self-management” of the interests of authors. These provisions govern the conditions of existence and operation of private entities and non-profit associations whose purpose is to manage intellectual property rights on behalf of their legal owners. To dedicate themselves to these functions, they must obtain permission from the Ministry of Culture, which publishes such approval in the BOE (Official State Gazette). Currently, there are eight entities of this type in Spain, the most famous being the SGAE (General Society of Authors and Publishers).
The Law of the Cinema
The Public Organization of Film
The Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA), established in 1984, is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Culture. Despite numerous legal reforms, it has survived to this day, with the possible conversion into a State Agency for Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (Law 55/07).
The ICAA has a Directorate General structure and four General branches:
- General Secretariat
- The General Directorate for the Promotion of Cinema and Audiovisual Industry
- The General Office of Promotion and International Relations
- Spanish film library