Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000

PART II

Copyright

Chapter 1

Subsistence of Copyright

Copyright and copyright works.

17.—(1) Copyright is a property right whereby, subject to this Act, the owner of the copyright in any work may undertake or authorise other persons in relation to that work to undertake certain acts in the State, being acts which are designated by this Act as acts restricted by copyright in a work of that description.

(2) Copyright subsists, in accordance with this Act, in—

(a) original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works,

(b) sound recordings, films, broadcasts or cable programmes,

(c) the typographical arrangement of published editions, and

(d) original databases.

(3) Copyright protection shall not extend to the ideas and principles which underlie any element of a work, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts and, in respect of original databases, shall not extend to their contents and is without prejudice to any rights subsisting in those contents.

(4) Copyright shall not subsist in a work unless the requirements for copyright protection specified in this Part with respect to qualification are complied with.

(5) Copyright shall not subsist in a work which infringes, or to the extent that it infringes, the copyright in another work.

(6) Copyright shall not subsist in a work which is, or to the extent that it is, a copy taken from a work which has been previously made available to the public.