Copyright law of Chile

The copyright law of Chile is governed by Law No. 17,336, on Intellectual Property of October 2 of 1970 and subsequent amendments. It was implemented in the Decree No. 1122 of the Ministry of Education of Chile on May 17 of 1971.

This law aims to protect the economic and moral rights of Chilean authors and foreigners residing in Chile, granted by the mere fact of creating works that are literary, artistic and scientific.

It states that foreign authors who aren't domiciled in the country enjoy the protection that is recognized by the international conventions that Chile has signed and ratified.

The Constitution of Chile of 1833 stipulated in Article 152 that "Every author or inventor shall have exclusive ownership of his discovery or production .." resulting in the act Literary and Artistic Property of July 24 of 1834 being passed.

It was replaced by Decree Law No. 345, Intellectual Property, of May 5 of 1925.

In turn, the 1950 Act 9.549 extended the copyright duration after the death of the author to fifty years.

In 1970, Chile signed and ratified the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works which states, among other principles, that the protection of the works should not be conditional upon compliance with any formality requirements.

Before it was due to issue a new law compatible with the international treaty, the Chilean government enacted Law No. 17,336, on Intellectual Property of October 2 of 1970 which, repealed the previous legislation on the subject.

Although the law provides a list of protected works, it is not exhaustive.

The types of rights under Chilean law is divided in two:

The protection of copyright in Chile is for the life of the author and 70 years after his death.

Originally, the Law No. 17,336 established an extension of 30 years, which was amended in 1992, increasing that period to 50 years after the death of the author. In turn, this duration was increased again in 2003 by Law No. 19,914, to 70 years.

Article 10 of Law 17,336 provides that if there is a spouse or unmarried daughters or widows whose spouse or affected by an inability to perform any kind of work, this period will extend until the date of death last of the survivors.

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Wikipedia