The Government reforms the Intellectual Property Law via a Royal Decree-Law in order to come into line with European legislation

In view of the imminent risk of a penalty due to the delay in transposing the Directive on the collective management of copyright (Directive 2014/26/EU, of 26 February 2014, which should have been transposed before April 10, 2016), the Government has transposed the directives through a Royal Decree-Law.

Royal Decree-Law 2/2018, of April 14, 2018 came into force on April 15, 2018 and will be effective once it has been validated by Parliament, which is due to take place next week.

What are the new features of the reform of the Intellectual Property Law?

• The Directive on permitted uses of certain works for the benefit of persons who are blind or visually impaired (Directive 2017/1564, of September 13 2017) has been included in the law, which adds a new limitation on copyright in article 31 ter.
• The law has been amended to include (i) rules governing the collective management of copyright, which introduce a series of obligations and requirements on the functioning of collective management organizations; (ii) requirements on the multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online use; (iii) rules governing independent management entities, private for-profit entities that from now on will have to obtain authorization to operate in Spain and manage copyrights; (iv) the penalty regime governing collective management organizations and independent operators.
• From the entry into force of the this legislation, collective management organizations have one year to come into line with its provisions. Organizations that have collected revenues in 2017 equal to or in excess of one hundred million euros, have a period of three months to adapt to the law.