The Supreme Court has confirmed the condemnation of a tenured professor of History of Law of the University of Burgos, to pay 3,000 euros of compensation for moral damage to a student of his doctorate, considering it accredited that he copied literally in two publications of his epigraphs of the work of research conducted by the student under his direction.

The Civil Chamber dismisses the appeal of the professor and confirms the judgment of the Audience of Burgos that declared that the professor had violated the copyright of the student. In addition to condemning him to pay compensation, he ordered the publication of the sentence or at least the full content of the ruling in the Legal Review of Castilla y León, at the expense of the defendant. The Hearing corrected the initial decision of a Commercial Court of Burgos that had acquitted the professor.

The proven facts include that in 2009, Juan Cruz Monje Santillana carried out a research project entitled "Laws of Burgos, precedent of international law and the recognition of human rights", under the direction of Rafael Sánchez Domingo, which was published in the institutional repository of the library of the University of Burgos. Three years later, part of that work - epigraphs 2 and 3-, appeared practically literally in two publications of the convicted professor. Specifically in chapter VI of the book "The Laws of Burgos of 1512 and centenary", which the professor wrote, and in the article "The Laws of Burgos of 1512 and the legal doctrine of the conquest. Before carrying out his work, according to the proven facts, the student gave a lecture on the Laws of Burgos in a course organized by the appellant, who asked for it after the absence of the teacher who had to teach it.

The Supreme rejects the professor's claim that the reproduced part of the work lacked originality because the ideas presented were not an intellectual creation of his, but he had given them before to give a lecture in 2009. And because they were not a novelty in the field of legal science, neither from the point of view of its content nor from that of the expression of ideas.

The Chamber explains that it is true that any written text does not in itself enjoy originality, since a minimum of intellectual creativity is required, but affirms that "this demand for creativity does not justify that, in an area such as that of the present resource (studies of History of Law), be associated with the judgment that the connoisseurs of the subject could make about the originality of the exposed ideas, but with the way in which they are exposed, so that, regardless of what is revealed in those headings 2 and 3 of Mr. Monje's work could already be known in that specialty of the History of Law, the really relevant thing is that, without prejudice to the pertinent citations of the sources from which this knowledge was taken, the way in which said it differed from what already existed and did not constitute a common place. "

In a case like the present one in which the reproduction of the epigraphs has been carried out practically literally, according to the sentence, "it cannot be hidden that the transmitted ideas constituted a common knowledge to deny originality to the partially reproduced work. verify with the literal reproduction of the text ".

The Board notes that it is logical that whoever directs a university research project in a doctoral program has been able to contribute in some way to the work prepared by the student, for the ideas, orientations and suggestions made in the direction of the work. "But this management work does not justify in itself a presumption that the total or partial authorship of the work corresponds to the director of the research work, unless those parts of the work are already published before by the director," underlines the court.

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