A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.
The copyright law of the European Union is the copyright law applicable within the European Union. Copyright law is largely harmonized in the Union, although country to country differences exist. The body of law was implemented in the EU through a number of directives, which the member states need to enact into their national law. The main copyright directives are the Copyright Term Directive, the Information Society Directive and the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Copyright in the Union is furthermore dependent on international conventions to which the European Union or their member states are part of, such as TRIPS Agreement or the Berne Convention.
The Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations also known as the International Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations and the Rome Convention, 496 U.N.T.S 43, was accepted by members of the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property (BIRPI), the predecessor to the modern World Intellectual Property Organization, on 26 October 1961. The Diplomatic Conference was jointly convened by BIRPI, the International Labour Organisation, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The agreement extended copyright related rights protection for the first time to entities or individuals who are not the author but have a close relationship to a copyrighted work, including performers, sound recording producers and broadcasting organizations. As of August 2021, the treaty has 96 contracting parties, with a party defined as a State which has consented to be bound by the treaty and for which the treaty is in force.
A copyright is the legal protection extended to the owner of the rights in an original work. Original work refers to every production in the literary, scientific, and artistic domains. The Intellectual Property Office (IPOPHL) is the leading agency responsible for handling the registration and conflict resolution of intellectual property rights and to enforce the copyright laws. IPOPHL was created by virtue of Republic Act No. 8293 or the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines which took effect on January 1, 1998, under the presidency of Fidel V. Ramos.
Copyright in the Netherlands is governed by the Dutch Copyright Law, copyright is the exclusive right of the author of a work of literature or artistic work to publish and copy such work.
The Copyright Act 1957 as amended governs the subject of copyright law in India. The Act is applicable from 21 January 1958. The history of copyright law in India can be traced back to its colonial era under the British Empire. The Copyright Act 1957 was the first post-independence copyright legislation in India and the law has been amended six times since 1957. The most recent amendment was in the year 2012, through the Copyright (Amendment) Act 2012.
The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, also known as the CDPA, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that received royal assent on 15 November 1988. It reformulates almost completely the statutory basis of copyright law in the United Kingdom, which had, until then, been governed by the Copyright Act 1956 (c. 74). It also creates an unregistered design right, and contains a number of modifications to the law of the United Kingdom on Registered Designs and patents.
The Jordanian Copyright Law and its Amendment No. (22) for the year 1992 is based on the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and does not contain a definition of copyright; however in Article (3) it clearly states that the law offers legal protection to any kind of original work in literature, art and science regardless of the value or purpose of the work.
Spanish copyright law governs copyright, that is the rights of authors of literary, artistic or scientific works, in Spain. It was first instituted by the Law of 10 January 1879, and, in its origins, was influenced by French copyright law and by the movement led by Victor Hugo for the international protection of literary and artistic works. As of 2006, the principal dispositions are contained in Book One of the Intellectual Property Law of 11 November 1987 as modified. A consolidated version of this law was approved by Royal Legislative Decree 1/1996 of 12 April 1996: unless otherwise stated, all references are to this law.
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, was an international assembly held in 1886 in the Swiss city of Bern by ten European countries with the goal to agree on a set of legal principles for the protection of original work. They drafted and adopted a multi-party contract containing agreements for a uniform, border-crossing system that became known under the same name. Its rules have been updated many times since then. The treaty provides authors, musicians, poets, painters, and other creators with the means to control how their works are used, by whom, and on what terms. In some jurisdictions these type of rights are being referred to as copyright.
Japanese copyright laws consist of two parts: "Author's Rights" and "Neighbouring Rights". As such, "copyright" is a convenient collective term rather than a single concept in Japan. Japan was a party to the original Berne convention in 1899, so its copyright law is in sync with most international regulations. The 1899 law protected copyrighted works for 30 years after the author's death. Law changes promulgated in 1970 extended the duration to 50 years. However, in 2004 Japan further extended the copyright term to 70 years for cinematographic works. At the end of 2018, as a result of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations and a requirement stemming from the EU–Japan Economic Partnership Agreement., the 70 year term was applied to all works. This new term was not applied retroactively; works that had entered the public domain between 1999 and 29 December 2018 (inclusive) due to expiration remained in the public domain.
Under the law of the United Kingdom, a copyright is an intangible property right subsisting in certain qualifying subject matter. Copyright law is governed by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended from time to time. As a result of increasing legal integration and harmonisation throughout the European Union a complete picture of the law can only be acquired through recourse to EU jurisprudence, although this is likely to change by the expiration of the Brexit transition period on 31 December 2020, the UK has left the EU on 31 January 2020. On 12 September 2018, the European Parliament approved new copyright rules to help secure the rights of writers and musicians.
The Copyright Act of 1976 is a United States copyright law and remains the primary basis of copyright law in the United States, as amended by several later enacted copyright provisions. The Act spells out the basic rights of copyright holders, codified the doctrine of "fair use", and for most new copyrights adopted a unitary term based on the date of the author's death rather than the prior scheme of fixed initial and renewal terms. It became Public Law number 94-553 on October 19, 1976 and went into effect on January 1, 1978.
The copyright law of the United States grants monopoly protection for "original works of authorship". With the stated purpose to promote art and culture, copyright law assigns a set of exclusive rights to authors: to make and sell copies of their works, to create derivative works, and to perform or display their works publicly. These exclusive rights are subject to a time and generally expire 70 years after the author's death or 95 years after publication. In the United States, works published before January 1, 1928, are in the public domain.
Copyright law in Thailand governs the legally enforceable rights of creative and artistic works under the Copyright Act BE 2537 (1994). Copyright is automatically protected for 50 years after the death of a known author or 50 years after publication in the case of an unknown author. It does not need registration; however, it can be filed with the Department of Intellectual property (DIP). Disputes are first heard in the Intellectual Property and International Trade Court.
The copyright law of South Africa governs copyright, the right to control the use and distribution of artistic and creative works, in the Republic of South Africa. It is embodied in the Copyright Act, 1978 and its various amendment acts, and administered by the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission in the Department of Trade and Industry. As of March 2019 a major amendment to the law in the Copyright Amendment Bill has been approved by the South African Parliament and is awaiting signature by the President.
Provisions related to Italian copyright law are found in Law no. 633 of 22 April 1941. Certain fundamental provisions are also found in the Italian Civil Code of 1942, Arts. 2575–2583.
The basic legal instrument governing copyright law in Georgia is the Law on Copyright and Neighboring Rights of June 22, 1999 replacing Art. 488–528 of the Georgian Civil Code of 1964. While the old law had followed the Soviet Fundamentals of 1961, the new law is largely influenced by the copyright law of the European Union.
The Copyright Act is the legal framework that protects the use of an individual's work once the idea has been physically expressed. It is a form of intellectual property that protects original works of authorship of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed. Ghana's current copyright law is Act 690 issued by the Parliament of the Republic of Ghana. It was enacted on 17 May 2005 and replaced Parliament's Act No. 110, the country's previous Copyright law from 1985. The Copyright law affords protection to a variety of works, grants Copyright holders rights to their work and defines the duration of that Copyright protection.
The Copyright law of El Salvador is legal rights to creative and artistic works under the laws of El Salvador. It was implemented in the Decree No. 604 of the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador on 16 of August 1993. This law aims to protect the economic and moral rights of Salvadoran authors and foreigners residing in El Salvador, granted by the mere fact of creating works that are literary, artistic and scientific.
