IFLA welcomes all steps towards making legislative changes that adapt current copyright frameworks to the digital age. Colombia is now in the process of reforming its copyright law (Ley 23 de 1982).

In light of this, IFLA’s president Glòria Pérez-Salmerón has sent an open letter to the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism.

The letter welcomes the reform, and underlines the importance of having an adequate set of exceptions and limitations that will allow libraries to fulfil their public interest mission and so better serve their users. It makes a number of suggestions for changed or new provisions to achieve this, and highlights the Ecuadorian “Código Orgánico de la Economía Social de los Conocimientos, Creatividad e Innovación”, which offers a good example of a balanced copyright system.

In particular, the letter comments on the following topics/provisions:

  • Library lending
  • On-the-premises access to works
  • Illustration for teaching
  • Inter-library loan
  • Orphan works
  • Implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty
  • Circumventing technical protection measures, when these prevent us of exceptions and limitations to copyright
  • Temporary digital reproductions (for example for caching) and other exceptions to the right of reproduction

Read the full letter here (in Spanish)