Título I

This law is of public order and social interest, and its purpose is the protection of the rights of authors of literary and artistic works, of performing artists, of producers of phonograms and of broadcasting organizations.

In the subject matter regulated by this Law, nationals of any country enjoy the same rights, legal remedies and legal means to defend their rights as Guatemalans.

Works published abroad enjoy protection in the national territory, in accordance with the international treaties and agreements approved and ratified by the Republic of Guatemala. Performances, phonograms and broadcasts whose holders are foreign citizens enjoy the same protection.

The enjoyment and exercise of the copyright and related rights recognized in this law are not subject to the formality of registration or any other formality and are independent and compatible with each other, as well as in relation to ownership and other rights having as their object the material medium to which the work, the artistic performance, the phonographic production is incorporated, or with industrial property rights. Works of art created for industrial purposes shall also be protected by this law with regard to their artistic content.

Article 4. For the purposes of this law, the following shall be understood as:

Performer: Any actor, singer, musician, dancer or other person who plays a role, sings, recites, declaims, interprets or performs in any form literary or artistic works or expressions of folklore.

Cable distribution: The operation by which carrier signals of signs, sounds, images or images and sounds, produced electronically or by other means, are transmitted at a distance by wire, cable, fiber optic or other conducting device, known or to be known, for purposes of their reception by the public.

Communication to the Public: Any act by which one or more persons, whether gathered or not in the same place, at the same time or at different times, including the time each one chooses, may have access to a work, by any means or procedure, analog or digital, known or to be known, that serves to transmit signs, words, sounds or images. Any process necessary and that results in the work being accessible to the public constitutes communication.

Copy or exemplar: Material support containing the work or phonogram, as a result of an act of reproduction.

Illicit copy: Reproduction not authorized in writing by the holder of the right, in exemplars that imitate or not the external characteristics of the legitimate exemplar of a work or phonogram.

Distribution to the public: Making available to the public the original or a copy of the work or phonogram, by means of its sale, lease, loan, importation or any other transfer of ownership. It also includes making it available by means of an individualized digital transmission system, that allows copies to be obtained, at the request of a member of the public.

Disclosure: Making the work or phonogram accessible to the public by any means or procedure.

Fixation: Incorporation of sounds or their representations in a physical medium that allows them to be perceived, reproduced or communicated to the public.

Phonogram: Any fixation of the sounds of a performance or execution or of other sounds, or of a representation of sounds other than in the form of a fixation included in a cinematographic or audiovisual work.

Ephemeral recording: Sound or audiovisual fixation of a representation or performance or of a broadcast emission, made by a broadcasting organization using its own means, for a transitional period and for its own broadcast emissions.

Effective technological measure: Technology, device or component that in the normal course of its operation, controls access to protected works, performances or executions and protected phonograms or any other protected material, or protects a copyright or a right related to copyright.

Anonymous work: That in which the identity of its author is not mentioned, by his will or because it is unknown.

Audiovisual work: Any creation expressed by means of a series of associated images, with or without incorporated sound, that is essentially intended to be shown through projection apparatus or any other means of communication of the image and sound, regardless of the characteristics of the material support containing it.

Collective work: That created by several authors, at the initiative and under the responsibility of a person, natural or legal, who publishes it under his name and in which it is not possible to identify the various contributions and their corresponding authors.

Work of applied art: Artistic creation with utilitarian functions or incorporated in an article or useful good, whether a work of craftsmanship or produced on an industrial scale.

Derivative work: The creation resulting from adaptation, translation, arrangement or other transformation of an original work, provided it is a distinct creation with a character of originality.

Work in collaboration: It is that created jointly by two or more natural persons.

Individual work: That created by a single physical person.

Unpublished work: That which has not been communicated to the public, with the consent of the author, in any form, not even orally.

Original work: The primal creation.

Posthumous work: That which has not been published during the life of its author.

Pseudonymous work: That in which the author presents himself under a pseudonym that does not identify him.

Broadcasting organization: The radio or television enterprise that transmits program to the public.

Lending: Making available of exemplars of the work or of a phonogram, for their use for a limited time and without direct or indirect economic or commercial benefit, carried out by a natural person, an institution or organization, whatever its form of legal constitution, whose services are accessible to the public or to any person.

Audiovisual producer: Enterprise or person that assumes the initiative, coordination and responsibility for the realization of the audiovisual work.

Phonogram producer: Natural or legal person that takes the initiative and has the responsibility for the first fixation of the sounds of a performance or execution, or other sounds or representations of sounds.

Program: Any set of images, sounds, or images and sounds, whether recorded or not, and incorporated into signals ultimately intended for their communication to the public.

Computer program: The work constituted by a set of instructions expressed by means of words, codes, plans or in any other form, which upon being incorporated into a machine-readable support, is capable of causing a computer to execute a given task or obtain a given result.

Public: Set of persons who, whether gathered or not in the same place, have access by any means, to a work, artistic performance or phonogram, regardless of whether they can do so at the same time or at different times or places.

Publication: The act of offering to the public, with authorization from the holder of the right, copies of a work or of a phonogram in reasonable quantity.

Broadcasting: Wireless or satellite transmission of sounds or images and of their representations, to be received by the public, including wireless transmission of encoded signals when the means of decoding are offered to the public by a broadcasting entity or with its consent.

Reproduction: Making by any means, one or more copies of a work, performance, execution or fixed phonogram, whether total or partial, permanent or temporary, including its temporary storage in electronic form and in all types of media.

Retransmission: The simultaneous or subsequent transmission by wireless means or by wire, cable, fiber optic or other analogous or digital procedure, known or to be known, of an emission originated by a broadcasting organization or cable distribution.

Satellite: Any device located in outer space, suitable for receiving and transmitting or retransmitting signals.

Signal: Any vector produced electronically and suitable for transporting programs.

Collective Management Society: Any civil association without lucrative purpose, duly registered, that has obtained from the Intellectual Property Register authorization to act as a collective management society in accordance with the provisions of this law.

Transmission: Communication at a distance by means of broadcasting, cable distribution or other analogous or digital procedure, known or to be known, of images, sounds, images with sound, data or any other content.

Honest uses: Those that do not interfere with the normal exploitation of the work nor cause prejudice to the legitimate interests of the author.

Videogram: Audiovisual fixation incorporated into material supports such as videocassettes, video discs, digital discs, digital tapes or other support, known or to be known.