S.I. No. 16/2004 - European Communities (Copyright and Related Rights) Regulations 2004


I, MARY HARNEY, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, in exercise of the powers conferred on me by section 3 of the European Communities Act 1972 (No. 27 of 1972), and for the purposes of giving further effect to Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 20011 , as amended by Corrigendum2 , hereby make the following Regulations:

1. (1) These Regulations may be cited as the European Communities (Copyright and Related Rights) Regulations 2004.

(2) In these Regulations, “Act of 2000” means the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 (No. 28 of 2000).

2. Section 2(1) of the Act of 2000 is amended in the definition of “protection-defeating device” by inserting the following after “measure”:

“or which is promoted, advertised or marketed for the purpose of circumvention of any rights protection measure, or which has only a limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent any rights protection measure”.

3. The Act of 2000 is amended by substituting for section 87 the following:

“Temporary acts of reproduction

(1) It is not an infringement of the rights conferred by this Part to undertake or conduct temporary acts of reproduction which acts are transient or incidental and which are an integral and essential part of a technological process and whose sole purpose is to enable—

(a) a transmission in a network between third parties by an intermediary, or

(b) a lawful use,

of a work or other subject-matter to be made, and which acts have no independent economic significance.

(2) Where a copy, which would otherwise be an infringing copy, is made under this section and is subsequently sold, rented or lent, or offered or exposed for sale, rental or loan, or otherwise made available to the public, it shall be deemed to be an infringing copy for those purposes and for all subsequent purposes.”.

4. The Act of 2000 is amended by substituting for section 244 the following:

Temporary acts of reproduction

“(1) It is not an infringement of the rights conferred by this Part to undertake or conduct temporary acts of reproduction which acts are transient or incidental and which are an integral and essential part of a technological process and whose sole purpose is to enable—

(a) a transmission in a network between third parties by an intermediary, or

(b) a lawful use,

of the subject-matter to be made, and which acts have no independent economic significance.

(2) Where a copy, which would otherwise be an illicit recording, is made under this section and is subsequently sold, rented or lent, or offered or exposed for sale, rental or loan, or otherwise made available to the public, it shall be treated as an illicit recording for those purposes and for all subsequent purposes.”.

5. The Act of 2000 is amended by substituting for section 374 the following:

Non-interference of Rights Protection Measures with Permited Acts

“(1) Nothing in this Chapter shall be construed as operating to prevent any person from undertaking the acts permitted—

(a) in relation to works protected by copyright under Chapter 6 of Part II,

(b) in relation to performances, by Chapter 4 of Part III, or

(c) in relation to databases, by Chapter 8 of Part V.

(2) Where the beneficiary is legally entitled to access the protected work or subject-matter concerned, the rightsholder shall make available to the beneficiary the means of benefitting from the permitted act, save where such work or other subject-matter has been made available to the public on agreed contractual terms in such a way that members of the public may access the work or other subject-matter from a place and at a time individually chosen by them.

(3) In the event of a dispute arising, the beneficiary may apply to the High Court for an order requiring a person to do or to refrain from doing anything the doing or refraining from doing of which is necessary to ensure compliance by that person with the provisions of this section.”.

6. The Act of 2000 is amended by the insertion in section 50 after subsection (5) of the following subsection:

“(6) The exemption provided for in this section shall not apply to reproductions of sheet music, on paper or any similar medium, effected by the use of any kind of photographic technique or by some other process having similar effects.”.

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GIVEN under my Official Seal, this 19th day of January 2004.

MARY HARNEY,

 Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

EXPLANATORY NOTE.

(This note is not part of the Instrument and does not purport to be a legal interpretation.)

This Order completes the transposition into Irish law of Directive 2001/29/EC on the Harmonisation of Certain Aspects of Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society. While Ireland was already in substantial compliance with this Directive through the enactment of the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 , the Order makes a small number of amendments to the 2000 Act to ensure it fully achieves the result intended by the Directive.

1 OJ No. L 167, 22.6.2001, p. 10.

2 OJ No. L 006, 10.1.2002, p. 70.