In El Salvador, copyright rights are protected by the Intellectual Property Law, which aims to safeguard, promote, and encourage related rights, industrial property, utility models, industrial or commercial designs, test data, and copyright.

According to our lawyer, Fátima Espinal, copyright encompasses both moral and economic rights. The author’s economic rights include the ability to authorize or prohibit the use of their works and to receive economic benefits from their use. On the other hand, the author’s moral right is inalienable and personal, allowing them to publish works in the form and manner they see fit, oppose plagiarism of the work, assert authorship of the work, hide their name, or use pseudonyms.

Regarding the protection of works, our expert clarifies that foreigners who publish their works in El Salvador will enjoy the same rights as Salvadorans, and works published abroad will be protected in the country according to the terms established in treaties and agreements ratified by the State.

Protected works include books, pamphlets, and writings, computer programs, musical works, dramatic or dramatic-musical and choreographic works, architectural or engineering works, photographs, silent, spoken, or musical cinematographic productions, radio or television works.

To effectively protect creations, the National Registry Center (CNR) offers Copyright Deposit services, in which the institution certifies the existence of the work. The deposit is made for the legal security of the rights holders and as evidence of their rights.

To request the deposit, the interested party must submit the original application, attach one or two copies of the work, pay $11.43 in fees, and include the payment receipt. Additionally, the CNR offers other services related to copyright, patents, and distinctive signs that can be consulted on its website.

Finally, Espinal emphasizes that copyright and related rights violations are defined in the Penal Code, and violators can be punished with imprisonment from 2 to 4 years, and from 4 to 6 years in cases of aggravated violations. Violations include the reproduction, plagiarism, or distribution of a literary or artistic work, its transformation, interpretation, or artistic performance fixed in any type of medium or communicated through any means without the authorization of the rights holders, as well as the import, export, or storage of copies of the work without authorization.

If you have more questions about this or other topics, you can contact us through our social media or by visiting our offices located at Calle Cuscatlán, #4312, Colonia Escalón, San Salvador, El Salvador.