P.R. Laws tit. 10, § 2102
For the purposes of this chapter, the following terms shall have the meaning stated below, except when the text clearly indicates otherwise:
(a) Theaters or cinemas. — Any building in which motion pictures are regularly shown for profit.
(b) Cinematographic film distributors. — Any natural or juridical person engaged in the business of supplying films for rental, sale or any other consideration to exhibitors.
(c) Cinematographic film exhibitor. — Any natural or legal person who operates theaters or cinemas.
(d) Premiere or first run of cinematographic films. — The first public showing of a film in a competitive area according to the use and ways of the industry.
(e) Second run of cinematographic films. — The second public showing of a film within a competitive area according to the use and ways of the industry.
(f) Subsequent runs. — The public showing of a film following the second run.
(g) Guarantee. — A minimum sum of money the exhibitor must pay for the public exhibition of a film.
(h) Unreasonable advances. — The sum of money paid by the exhibitor to the distributor before the exhibition period of the film, which is not in proportion to a reasonable estimate of the exhibitor’s expected gross profit.
(i) Bids. — A written offer by the exhibitor to a distributor in response to an “invitation to bid” from the distributor, including the terms and conditions by which the exhibitor is willing to rent or lease a certain film for showing.
(j) Trade show. — Showing of a film to be distributed in the near future, which should be held before the exhibitors must submit their bids so that they have equal opportunities to submit the offer they deem pertinent.
(k) Clearance. — The period of time during which a cinematographic film is not shown in the area after its first run showing.
(l) Person. — Shall be used in this chapter, except when otherwise provided, to include natural persons, and without being considered as a limitation, the corporations, companies, societies, associations, trusts, enterprises or any other organizations or entities, as well as any two or more persons as defined in this section, in community; but shall not include public corporations or instrumentalities of the Commonwealth.
(m) Spot booking. — Those sporadic and emergency situations during which an exhibitor has no cinematographic film to show in his theater and has to resort to the distributors to lease him a film which has already been shown in Puerto Rico.
(n) Direct exhibitor by exception. — Means that exhibitor of cinematographic films who at any given moment secures the distribution of a film which is available to distributors in Puerto Rico, who for some reason do not wish to distribute said film, to be shown solely in his/her movie theaters. Every distributor shall notify all exhibitors as to his/her decision not to distribute a film.
History —June 14, 1980, No. 133, p. 494, § 2; June 9, 1996, No. 52, § 1.