Intellectual Property in Relation to Translations from a Spanish Legal Perspective

Abstract

In Spain, it is quite common for translators to see their intellectual property rights infringed by publishers without the infringement reaching the courts, let alone the high court, our Supreme Court. In the case discussed here, a publisher incorporated the complete translation of a short story into an anthology of Japanese literature without the author’s permission; such use is not covered as an example of quotation or by any of the exceptions to copyright provided for in current Spanish legislation. The incorporation of another’s copyrighted work, however brief it may be, and its subsequent publication in an anthology of texts without the author’s permission constitute an infringement of the copyright on the translation.