Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000

Fair dealing: research or private study.

50.—(1) Fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, sound recording, film, broadcast, cable programme, or non-electronic original database, for the purposes of research or private study, shall not infringe any copyright in the work.

(2) Fair dealing with a typographical arrangement of a published edition for the purposes of research or private study shall not infringe any copyright in the arrangement.

(3) The copying by a person, other than the researcher or private student, is not fair dealing where—

(a) in the case of a librarian or archivist, he or she does anything which is not permitted under section 63 , or

(b) in any other case, the person copying knows or has reason to believe that the copying will result in copies of substantially the same material being provided to more than one person at approximately the same time and for substantially the same purpose.

(4) In this Part, “fair dealing” means the making use of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, film, sound recording, broadcast, cable programme, non-electronic original database or typographical arrangement of a published edition which has already been lawfully made available to the public, for a purpose and to an extent which will not unreasonably prejudice the interests of the owner of the copyright.

(5) In this Part, the following acts are not fair dealing—

(a) converting a computer program expressed in a low level computer language into a version expressed in a higher level computer language, or

(b) copying a computer program in an incidental manner in the course of converting that program.