During a discussion with a friend he convinced me that it is important to start posting in english our local information because this could help others understand our own reality and our way of addressing our own situation. With this post I am doing my own beta essay and will continue posting eventually some interesting issues in english… Wish me luck!!

So, my first issue is one I have posted and deal with several times before (see the bottom of this post), I will try to present my concerns in a summary in english… Comments are very welcome!

During the month of June 2006 a criminal law reform was signed by the Colombian President, this reform increases sanctions regarding copyright economical infringements in Colombia in a way that none other country has ever considered. The new situation is easily pictured with a glimpse to the “anti-circumvention measure” (legal protection for copyright owners’ through technological protection measures).

This law reform in Colombia, regarding economical copyright infringement, has reinforced the Copyright approach in an unbalanced way. If we consider that someone who sexually abuses of a kid will have the same penalty of some one who breaks the TPM in a CD, we should conclude that the approach of fighting piracy just by criminal threats is the “Colombian approach” ignoring many other issues that surrounds the same environment.

During the last two years a criminal reform bill was studied by the Colombian Congress, this bill finally became law 1032 of June 22nd 2006. This law has a very strong position in terms of protecting the copyright owners control over intellectual property. Moreover, it has gone beyond what the FTA with USA will demand from Colombia once it is signed by both countries.

Background: In Colombia the anti-circumvention law for TPM has been adopted in the form of criminal penalties since 2000 (in a former criminal reform) where the penalty was estimated in a simple ‘fine’ and it just talks about non-authorized uses, which even leaves aside the “excepciones legales” (that more or less is the equivalent to fair use under copyright regimes), at least from the text. This is normal, considering that Colombian legislation has followed the strict path of copyright during the last years and has forgotten to balance the other side of the situation, therefore the limits had turned very narrow.

Let me go back a little bit: Since 2000 Colombian criminal law regarding copyright infringement has three articles (2000 criminal law reform):
a. Moral Rights Infringements
b. Economical Copyright infringements
c. Related Copyright infringements

In 2002 there was another criminal law reform that reinforced the penalties in all of the special section of the criminal law statute, including these articles. This meant that penalties a and b were increased in 1/3. Regarding these 2 groups we should say that they both stated prison and fines, and that in the b group there was a paragraph that would lessen the penalty if the criminal act did not entail a profit of a certain amount for the delinquent. The c group (including the anti-circumvention ‘crime’) just stated fines and did not specify the amount.

Since 2004 a new bill of law was in Congress. The main purpose of this bill was to reinforce the criminal penalties for copyright infringement with all the reasoning that the entertainment industry normally addresses. This 2004 bill entered into force June 22nd, 2006 becoming the Law 1032. The Law 1032 was approved with barely any criticism and fully applies today.

2006 Situation: So, in 2006 what did the law do? Regarding moral rights, nothing, but regarding the other 2 (groups b and c): Economical Copyright infringements: They withdrew the paragraph that could benefit people when not having a say ‘financial profit’, increased fines (top limit) and stated the new prison limits that now go from 4 to 8 years (the 2002 reform had increased the prison penalty to a bit less than that, so what was done in this case was to bring the penalties to round numbers).

The big change, however, was done to the third group, here the penalties went to: prison from 4 to 8 years and the fines had now top and bottom limits that are quit strong. The infringements relate to group c (art 272 of the Colombian Criminal Law Statute, Código Penal):
- circumvention of TPM regarding not authorized uses
- to withdraw or change information needed for the electronic management of rights (DRM), to import, to distribute or communicate the work with this information that has been changed or withdrawn.
- to make, import, sell, rent or in any other way distribute to the public any system or object that allows someone to decode a satellite signal… or in any other way can circumvent any object or system of TPM (this is longer, but this is the general idea)
- to present declarations or information regarding the royalty payments of copyrights committing fraud in any way.
The law also addresses some telecommunications and industrial property infringements that are outside the scope of this article with the same intention: to reinforce the penalties under the idea of controlling ‘ilegal activities’.

My own related spanish articles:
- “¡Un momento! ¿Copiar un CD sin autorización será un delito tan grave como el de abusar sexualmente de un niño?”, Carolina Botero,19 de junio de 2006, equinoXio,
- “COLOMBIA- Lo que el Congreso no miró, violaciones al derecho de autor y aumento de penas”, Carolina Botero, 20 de junio de 2006, carobotero-co.
- “¿Cómo aprenden los niños?, y eso ¿qué tiene que ver con las Medidas Tecnológicas de Protección en el Código Penal Colombiano?”, Carolina Botero,19 de junio de 2006, aprender la libertad. o en una versión más reciente del 20 de julio de 2006. Revista Essentia Libre.