The Superior Court of Bogotá overturned the ruling of the National Directorate of Copyright based on the concept of incidental use of pictorial works in audiovisual works.

In the first-instance ruling, the DNDA declared that the producer reproduced the claimant’s authored works without proper authorization by displaying his paintings in multiple scenes of the series “LA SELECCIÓN.”

After verifying that the paintings are permanently housed in the locations where the scenes were filmed and that these scenes had no relation to the narrative thread of the production, it was concluded that even the presence of close-ups of the works was solely to set the scene. Therefore, their appearance could not be classified as public reproduction or communication.

This is the first ruling in Colombia that applies the copyright exception recognized by the Andean Community Court of Justice in the preliminary interpretation 135-IP-2020.