Copyright in Mexico

If you are an artist, photographer or even a company, surely you have heard about copyrights in Mexico, these as such refer to the exclusivity of a person or group over a created work, these rights can be defined in two ways:

• Moral Rights: When the author registers his creation as completely his own, without temporary and definitive permissions.
• Economic Rights: Directly related to the rights of third parties or the author himself to exploit his intellectual work, in a permissive manner and only with the limitations imposed by the law or the author himself.

Copyright in Mexico applies directly to artists, musicians, editors and web developers, as opposed to company and trademark laws, where, in general, similar laws are used in terms of order but different in terms of origin, also known as trademark, company, etc. registrations.

What is a work according to the law and which ones are entitled to copyright protection?

According to the law, works are personal expressions manifested in different forms, with the possibility of being disseminated to a medium and reproduced to the public in different methods of transmission. The works can be protected as long as they have originality that validates them to be so and that they are without a clear basis (that is not a notable influence of another).

Taking into account that Copyrights are directly related to works and that the works have to be a direct expression of one or several persons, we have as an example that the following can be taken into account for Patent registration:

• Artistic works: whether musical, dramatic, literary, imaginative, art, corporal expression (dance and dance).
• Visual and auditory works: Cinema, television, radio and any other based on audio or video reproduction or both.
• Architecture: Any original design work that directly contributes to an artistic expression (architecture and architectural design is an art form validated for patent registration).
• Photographic works: As part of visual and aural works but very specifically separated from anything that is radio and television as such.
• Web development: Everything related to websites, their implicit code and final design, also taking into account computer programs intended for a purpose and operating systems.
• Technology: Any device created under a logical basis and operation by the same author is considered a work, which takes a branch of architecture and the development of computer programs itself, it is easily registrable as long as there is evidence and sample of the original patents.
• Patent registrations in Mexico are registered at the National Institute of Copyright and if you are qualified to register your creation, it is always advisable to register it before any type of commercial activity and/or distribution of the same is performed.

Duration and protection of your copyrighted works in Mexico

The protection of your copyrighted works as a patent gives you the merit of the same and legal validity in any place that is reproduced without your consent, in this way, you can take action in case someone plans to profit with your work without your consent and without any type of recognition towards your person.

The way in which the patent is registered is by giving the assigned Institute a material that serves as support for the validation of the product as legitimate, in the musical aspect it can be delivery of a document with score and lyrics of a song (if it has the latter) and a proof of the single (in case it is recorded), the legitimacy will be based on the previous registrations and the concordant dates.

Copyright protection has the durability of its legitimate owner and 100 years after his death, once this process is completed, the work becomes public domain unless there are co-authors, who receive the right of the document at the time of death of the last registered author of the work.

Limitations

There are limitations with respect to the acquisition of copyrights in Mexico, the most natural and logical is the wait of 30 days for the reception of the document while the corresponding investigation is being carried out and once the form is filled out and the registration fees are paid.

Legal or moral persons are not entitled to the authorship of a work by the Mexican Federal Copyright Law, limiting this action only and exclusively to natural and physical persons with capacity of intellectual creation, the latter, have no limitations in this regard.