Copyright registration in Paraguay. Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a country in South America. Paraguay is a developing country. It is a founding member of Mercosur, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the Lima Group. Additionally, the city of Luque, in metropolitan Asuncion, is the seat of the South American Football Confederation. Despite a history of poverty and political repression, in a 2017 Positive Experience Index based on global polling data, Paraguay ranked as the “world’s happiest place”. Accordingly, many businesses want to enter this market and one of the most important preparations a business needs to take before expanding to this country is to learn the procedure of copyright registration in Paraguay.
Copyright in Paraguay
Unlike other intellectual property rights such as trademarks, patents, industrial designs, plant varieties, etc., copyright does not need to be registered for protection but will be automatically protected from the time the works are created.
The creation must be visible in a certain material form, like content, quality, form, medium, language, published or unpublished, registered or unregistered.
Accordingly, whether registered or not, the copyright to the work will still be protected. However, the creator should still apply for copyright registration in Paraguay early because early registration will give the author/owner of the work many advantages in the event of a dispute.
When unauthorized use of work occurs around the world, the owner of a work who has made a copyright registration in Paraguay will not have to waste time and complicate matters with proving himself/herself to be the legitimate owner of the work.
Thereby, in order to avoid passivity, the owner of the work should make a copyright registration in Paraguay immediately to protect their rights and interests when there is an infringement.
Copyright registration in Paraguay
Paraguay is a member country of The Berne Convention for Copyright since 1992.
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (the Berne Convention) is an international agreement governing copyright. The agreement was first accepted in Berne, Switzerland, in 1886.
As Paraguay is a contracting party of the Berne Convention, any work originating in Paraguay will be given copyright protection in each of the Berne Convention member countries.
In most countries, copyright protection is automatic as soon as the work existed in material form. However, the copyright registration in Paraguay is critical in order for the copyright owner to obtain evidence of copyright.
Evidence of copyright is extremely important even when the works are automatically protected according to copyright law.
When registering, the work will get an application submission date, as well as information about the creation and proof of creative concept and development. This provides unambiguous proof of authorship and ownership that can’t be denied.
Proof of copyright is essential in an age when the publishing, dissemination, and theft of material is extremely easy with the exposure of the Internet.
If copyright registration is not made, copyright owners will lose a big amount of money as well as time needed to resolve issues related to copyright, proving ownership of the original work.
If the copyright owner has already registered for copyright protection to the IP office, they would have a strong legal foundation which would increase their chance of winning against the violating parties.
Documents for copyright registration in Paraguay
To obtain copyright registration in Paraguay, the author of the work needs to prepare the following documents:
- Declaration of copyright registration in Paraguay;
- Two copies of copyrighted work;
- Documents proving the right to apply;
- Written consent of co-authors, if the work has co-authors;
- Written consent of the co-owners, if the copyright is jointly owned;
- Notarized identity card of the author or owner of the work;
- Power of Attorney, if the applicant is an authorized person;
- Notarized copy of the company’s business registration certificate (if the owner is a company).
The copyright law of Paraguay
Paraguay has been a member of the Universal Copyright Convention since 11 March 1962, the Berne Convention since 2 January 1992, the World Trade Organization since 1 January 1995 and the WIPO Copyright Treaty since 6 March 2002.
As of 2018 the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), an agency of the United Nations, listed Law No. 1328/98 on Copyright and Related Rights as the main copyright law enacted by the legislature of Paraguay.
SICE, part of the Organization of American States, holds the Spanish text of this law. WIPO holds an English translation of this law in the WIPO Lex database.
The 1998 law was retroactive: “Works and other productions that have passed into the public domain on expiry of the term provided for in the legislation repealed by this Law shall return to the private domain until such time as the term provided for in this Law expires, without prejudice to rights acquired by third parties prior to the entry into force thereof”.[1328/1998 Article 181]
You can see a list of Paraguay IP Firms here.