Hernán Torres Aguirre – GC Powerlist
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Chile 2022

Sports and media

Hernán Torres Aguirre

Head of legal | Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial

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Chile 2022

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Hernán Torres Aguirre

Head of legal | Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial

Focus on the importance of intellectual property compliance in media and entertainment

Every media and entertainment business company uses content protected by some form of Intellectual Property (IP), whether copyright protected material or their own or some third party’s registered trademarks. The IP of a media and entertainment company is the most valuable asset of their business, and these contents must comply with relevant IP regulations in order to avoid infringement on the IP rights and interests of third parties.

In fact, media and entertainment companies must have responsible business practices regarding ownership and compliance with applicable intellectual property laws, rules and regulations. Protecting the intangible assets of their own business is crucial and at the same time, implementing in-house policies to improve protection of IP laws also helps reducing the business risks associated with these infringements.

These companies establish an appropriate monitoring process, since IP violations might lead not only to compliance violations, but also civil liability risks. The timely and careful examination of IP rights of third parties can prevent the infringement of rights. An IP audit is often a good starting point in this process which will also allow the company to have a clear understanding of these assets and its management.

The protection of a company’s IP may take many different methods depending on its sector and particular business. In the media and entertainment industry not only reviewing the trade names, symbols, registration and proper usage of trademarks are appropriate, but also the documentation of original copyrightable works, and in some cases registration or notice of copyright or author’s right, may be needed.

The process of renewing trademark rights, paperwork, and other evidence of the existence of copyright or author’s right should be carefully maintained during the years. In this last aspect, it is very clear that copyright or author’s right registration is not mandatory but considering the competition in the industry and the counterfeiting problems, it is always advisable.

All these processes are now relevant to compliance in many companies, and the commitment of a company to act in accordance with IP compliance requires support by the highest-level company management.

Besides in-house policies and procedures, there is a long list of other actions that might help a company to deter others from infringing its IP rights: such as cooperating among other rights owners and intermediaries to take steps to dissuade IP infringement in the selling of counterfeited products; working with industry associations such as collective management organisations to combat various types of counterfeiting and piracy; and filing complaints or taking legal actions as appropriate.

Hernán Torres Aguirre - Chile 2019

Head of legal | Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial

Hernán Torres Aguirre, head of legal of Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial in Chile, is an IP specialist with a strong background in the publishing industry. He started his career...

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Hernán Torres Aguirre

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