Mexico City, July 7th, 2020.
With the entry into force of the USMCA (T-MEC) and the reforms to the Federal Copyright Law (FCL), we enter into the regulation of the use of works and contents in the digital environment.
These new legal reforms to the FCL impose greater economic liabilities, even criminal liabilities, for copyright infringements in the Digital Network and provide greater control and prosecution authority to the rightsholders of films, videos, television series, electronic books, music, videogames, software and entertainment programs for the effective collection of royalties in the digital environment.
With the implementation in the FCL of the “Information on Rights Management” or “Digital Fingerprint” to any intellectual work (music or films) that circulates in the Network it will be possible to fully identify copyright infringers to punish them, it will even be possible to petition the internet service provider to “delete” or suspend the distribution in the network of the unauthorized work through a procedure.
“In the Mexican digital environment, it is estimated that 64.5 percent of users consume some kind of content through the internet that is not subjected to the payment of royalties for its use” according to a survey from the Coalition for the Legal Access to Culture.
The type of rights granted to holders in the digital environment are: the rights of reproduction, distribution, rental, making available to the public of works and contents on the INTERNET, broadcast and public communication.
Also, it shall be criminally punishable and with considerable fines, the evading, cracking of technological locks and the breach of technological protection measures (TPM) in games, consoles and in entertainment software, as well as the unauthorized reception or decoding of encrypted paid television satellite signals with the judicial claim for damages.
We are living in a new time with the entry into for of the USMCA (T-MEC) and the reforms to the FCL which promote the enhance of the collection of royalties for the use of works and contents in the Digital Era, whose conflicts and scope in a regional and global level shall be plentiful.
The Copyright, Entertainment Law and New Technologies team of Basham, Ringe, and Correa, S.C. handles with great specialization any kind of conflicts and advisory in the digital environment derived from claims to the payment of copyright royalties.
S I N C E R E L Y,
Manuel Guerra
Santiago Zubikarai
