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IPR and Copyrights

Intellectual property and Copyright

Regulations governing Intellectual Property in Spain

Open Access, Intellectual property and Copyright

Copyleft and Creative Commons Licenses

Intellectual property and Copyright in ABACUS

Topics of interest and Open Access

Dissertations in Open Access

Intellectual property and Copyright

According to the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, Intellectual Property "is the set of rights that correspond to authors and other owners (artists, producers, broadcasters, etc.) in respect of works and services resulting from their creative endeavors."

An author is understood as the natural person responsible for creating a literary, artistic or scientific work. All original literary, artistic and scientific creations expressed through any medium, whether tangible or intangible, that is currently known or that may be invented in the future are subject to intellectual ownership. The intellectual ownership of a literary, artistic or scientific work corresponds to the author merely on the grounds of having created it. Author status is irrevocable.

The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport is entrusted with proposing measures – regulatory or otherwise– to ensure the effective protection of said property.

Article Two of the current Consolidated Text of the Spanish Intellectual Property Act (Spanish acronym: TRLPI) states that "Intellectual Property shall encompass personal and proprietary rights that confer upon the author full control over and the exclusive right to exploit the work, without any limitation whatsoever other than those laid down by law."

Types of Copyright

Moral Rights

These rights pertain to the author throughout their life, and to their heirs following the author's death. They are irrevocable and unalienable. They include the right of attribution (or recognition as author of the work) and the right to demand that the integrity of the work be respected and not subject to alteration. They also entitle the author to remove the work from the market due to a change in personal convictions, following compensation to the holders of rights to exploit the work, and recognizing the preference of previous rightholders in the event of deciding to censure exploitation of the work.

Economic Rights

These rights entitle the author to receive economic compensation for use of the work by third parties. Unlike moral rights, economic rights can be transferred almost entirely freely. These rights may be exploitation rights or simple remuneration rights.

By transferring these rights, the author may permit, among other things, reproduction, distribution, public communication and transformation, together with the right to collect and obtain a profit from acts of distribution, resale and loan.

There are a number of other related rights that protect creative activities corresponding, mainly, to artists, actors, performers, photographers, producers of phonograms and audiovisual recordings, and broadcasters.

Regulations governing Intellectual Property in Spain

Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1996, de 12 de abril, por el que se aprueba el Texto Refundido de la Ley de Propiedad Intelectual.
Directiva 2004/48/CE del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo, de 29 de abril de 2004, relativa a las medidas y procedimientos destinados a garantizar el respeto de los derechos de Propiedad Intelectual.
Ley 21/2014, de 4 de noviembre, por la que se modifica el texto refundido de la Ley de Propiedad Intelectual, aprobado por Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1996, de 12 de abril, y la Ley 1/2000, de 7 de enero, de Enjuiciamiento Civil.
Ley 23/2006, de 7 de julio, por la que se modifica el texto refundido de la Ley de Propiedad Intelectual, aprobado por el Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1996, de 12 de abril.
Ley 4/2011, de 4 de marzo, de Economía Sostenible.

Open Access, Intellectual property and Copyright

Open Access is the name of an international movement whose goal is to ensure that the results of scientific research are accessible to everyone via the Internet without any kind of obstacle or restriction. It has to do not only with open, online and free access to publications but also with authors' copyright. The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) develops and promotes interoperability standards that aim to facilitate the dissemination, exchange and access to heterogeneous collections of scientific and academic documents. The OAI does not conflict with the Spanish Intellectual Property Act.

Open access is based on respecting and recognizing copyright and stems from the author's power to decide how they wish to make their work known and under what conditions it may be used by third parties within the framework established by current intellectual property legislation. Therefore, open access dissemination does not mean waiving intellectual property rights.

The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities was approved on October 22, 2003 following an international initiative. Its goal was to promote the Internet as a functional instrument for a global scientific knowledge base and human reflection. It also sought to define a series of measures to be considered by those responsible for research policy, scientific institutions and funding agencies, as well as libraries, archives and museums. To date, more than 450 scientific institutions worldwide have joined this movement.

Copyleft and Creative Commons Licenses

Copyleft

The purpose of Copyleft Foundation is to promote and defend the production of art, culture and science under copyleft licenses.

Copyleft licences are non-restrictive and provide creators with greater control over their work, research and projects and a more reasonable remuneration for their work while also giving end users greater access to, and enjoyment of, works released in this way.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools. CC gives you flexibility (for example, you can choose to allow only non-commercial uses) and protects the people who use your work, so they don't have to worry about copyright infringement, as long as they abide by the conditions you have specified.

In Spain, the management of the CC licenses is made by Creative Commons Spain.

	Attribution (CC BY): This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.
	Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC): This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
	Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA): This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.
	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND): This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
	Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA): This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to "copyleft" free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.
	Attribution-NoDerivs (CC BY-ND): This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

More information about CC Licenses at:

Intellectual property and Copyright in ABACUS

How are Copyright and Intellectual Property rights protected?

Whenever an author deposits their documents (items) in ABACUS, all intellectual property rights remain unaffected. Furthermore, any assignment of rights made by the author is non-exclusive with the University, allowing for the possibility to publish/exploit their work with other publishers. Whenever the author deposits their work in the ABACUS Repository, their copyright will remain protected under a Creative Commons license, provided that their work has not been published previously.

All documents (items) deposited in the ABACUS Repository that have not been published previously are assigned the next license by default:

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)

The author is entitled to change this license for any other deemed more appropriate for the protection and reutilization of their work by third parties.

In the event that the document is published and the publisher has assigned it any other type of CC license, the latter shall be respected.

What rights do publishers have over published articles?

The inclusion of scientific papers that have already been published and self-archived in the ABACUS Repository of Universidad Europea de Madrid may be restricted by publishers’ policies relating to their publication.

Below is a list of useful links to help determine the conditions under which a large number of publishers enable articles that have been published in their magazines to be included in repositories.

Thus, depending on the rules applied by each publisher, certain conditions may or may not apply as regards the inclusion of works in the Repository. In any event, authors are required to know and specify in the self-archiving form the conditions under which the publisher authorizes uploading to ABACUS, be it through existing collections or direct contact with the publisher. Furthermore, authors are required to provide proof, if necessary, of authorization from the corresponding publisher and the conditions under which this authorization was obtained. Universidad Europea de Madrid will verify compliance with this formal requirement and, should it not give possible to do so, may refuse the self-archiving of the document (item) until such compliance has been verified.

Topics of interest and Open Access

Dissertations in Open Access

The Universidad Europea de Madrid Dissertation Collection contains the dissertations produced in the PhD programs currently or previously offered at this University.

The dissertations that are available in open access in the Repository have the author's permission for electronic publication. The rights will be protected by the Creative Commons license (Attribution / NonCommercial / NoDerivates).

Authors who have their dissertations deposited at the Universidad Europea de Madrid Repository, retain all their rights, with the possibility of publish / exploit their deposited item with other publishers.

If you have a PhD from Universidad Europea de Madrid and wish to deposit your dissertation in open access in the Repository, please contact the Repository administrator or send an email to bibliotecacrai@universidadeuropea.es.