Copyright in Costa Rica: What Is Protected, How Long It Lasts, and Whether Registration Is Required

The Copyright and Related Rights Law (Law No. 6683, of 1982, with subsequent amendments — the most recent cited in the current text is Law No. 8834 of 2010) protects original creations in Costa Rica.

What is protected (Article 1): protection covers books, computer programs, musical works, photographs, paintings, audiovisual works, maps, plans, compilations of original data, and authorized translations or adaptations, among others. Important: it protects the EXPRESSION of an idea, not the idea itself — nor procedures, methods or mathematical concepts on their own.

**No registration is required to have copyright** — protection arises automatically with the creation of the work. The Registro Nacional de Derechos de Autor y Derechos Conexos exists, but registration there is optional, only to have an additional proof of date/author‑ship easier to demonstrate if a dispute arises later.

Two types of rights, and a key difference between them:

• **Economic rights**: the right to exploit the work financially (sell it, license it, reproduce it). These CAN be transferred, sold or inherited.
• **Moral right** (Articles 13-14): personal, inalienable, irrevocable and **perpetual** — it cannot be transferred even by sale. Includes: claiming authorship of the work, opposing its distortion or modification in a way that harms the author's honor or reputation, keeping it unpublished, and withdrawing it from circulation (the last two with compensation to anyone harmed). Upon the author's death, the exercise of the moral right passes to the spouse, descendants and ascendants in that order.

How long protection lasts (Article 58): the author's entire life, plus 70 years after their death. For collaborative works, those 70 years are counted from the death of the last co‑author (Article 59). For works without a natural‑person author as the basis (dictionaries, encyclopedias, collective works), it is 70 years counted from publication (Article 60).

Note: this fact sheet summarizes the most frequently consulted questions by individual creators and small businesses (writers, photographers, musicians, programmers). For more specific issues — licenses, fair use, or an actual infringement dispute — it is advisable to consult the Registro Nacional de Derechos de Autor or a lawyer specialized in intellectual property.