🚀 go-pugleaf

Tristan Miller wrote on Sat, 31 Jan 2004 21:30:27 +0100....
> 
> I'm currently researching an accusation that a Spanish organization has
> committed plagiarism.  The party making the accusation claims an
> infringement of the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty.  However, according to the
> WIPO website at http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/documents/pdf/s-wct.pdf,
> Spain is not a contracting party to this treaty as of 4 November 2003.  In
> fact, no member of the EU is among the signatories.
> 
> Can I take this as proof that this particular infringement claim is just a
> baseless threat?  Or is it possible that the EU or some other political
> organization of which Spain is a member has ratified the treaty on its
> behalf, thus making Spain an indirect signatory?  Or perhaps Spain ratified
> the treaty after 4 November, and the WIPO document is simply out of date?
> 
> Basically, I just want to know whether the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty has
> any legal standing in Spain...

The real question is whether the act complained of infringes Spanish 
copyright law.  The various international treaties don't necessarily 
have direct effect in any given country.  They are just an agreement 
by the signatory countries that they will make sure their national 
laws comply with the treaty concerned.

Spanish law may or may not already comply with whatever WIPO Copyright 
Treaty provision you are thinking about, even if they haven't signed 
up to the whole WCT yet.

However, Spanish law will undoubtedly comply with the much older and 
much more widely recognised Berne Convention.  The Berne Convention is 
also administered by WIPO and you can find it at 
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/index.html .

There should also be copies of Spanish copyright laws on WIPO's site, 
at http://clea.wipo.int/ .  Quite possibly there may be a copy in 
English.  However, there is so much basic legislation and so little 
commentary on WIPO's CLEA site that I always find it difficult to know 
whether I'm looking at the right thing.

If the act complained of is not something that is clearly illegal in 
every country that has signed Berne, then I think your next step 
should be to consult a Spanish lawyer with experience of copyright 
matters.

-- 
Tim Jackson
news@winterbourne.freeserve.invalid
(Change '.invalid' to '.co.uk' to reply direct)
Absurd patents: visit http://www.patent.freeserve.co.uk