Nature of Copyright

Copyright is a property right whereby, and subject to legislation, the owner of the copyright work may undertake or authorise other persons to carry out certain acts in respect of the work.

Copyright protection does 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.

Works Protected

Protection extends to literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works, sound recordings, films, broadcasts, cable programmes, typographical arrangements of published editions, original databases, and includes computer programs.

Acts Restricted by Copyright

Subject to the exceptions mentioned later, the owner of the copyright in a work has the exclusive right to undertake, or authorise others to undertake all or any of the following acts:

  • to copy the work,
  • to make the work available to the public,
  • to make an adaptation of the work.

These acts are known as acts restricted by copyright, and  the undertaking of any of these acts by a third party without the consent of the copyright owner amounts to infringement.

Owner of Copyright

The author of a work is the first owner of the copyright unless:

  • the work is made by an employee in the course of employment, in which case the employer is the first owner of any copyright in the work, subject to any agreement to the contrary.
  • the work is subject of Government copyright.
  • the work is subject of the copyright of a prescribed international organisation.
  • the copyright in the work is conferred on some other person by legislation.

Author

This means the person who creates the work and includes:

  • in the case of a sound recording, the producer;
  • in the case of a film, the producer and the principal director;
  • in the case of a broadcast, the person making the broadcast or in the case of a broadcast which relays another broadcast by reception and immediate retransmission, without alteration, the person making that other broadcast;
  • in the case of a cable programme, the person providing the cable programme service in which the programme is included;
  • in the case of a typographical arrangement of a published edition, the publisher; 
  • in the case of a work which is computer-generated, the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work are undertaken;
  • in the case of an original database, the individual or group of individuals who made the database; and
  • in the case of a photograph, the photographer.

    • Author’s Qualification

    A work qualifies for copyright protection where the author is a qualifying person. A qualifying person includes:

  • an Irish citizen, or a citizen or subject of, or an individual domiciled or ordinarily resident in a country, territory, state in respect of which the Government has made an order extending the provisions of this copyright legislation
  • a national or foreign body corporate again subject to the proviso outlined above
  • a national or foreign partnership or unincorporated body subject to foregoing proviso 
  • any other national or foreign body, again subject to the foregoing proviso.

    • Moral Rights

    The author of a work has the right to be identified as the author and that right applies to an adaptation of the work which is known as the paternity right.

    There are numerous qualifications and exceptions to the application of the paternity right, and these include:

  • the inclusion of the work in an incidental manner in another work,
  • acts done for purposes of instruction or examination,
  • acts done in parliamentary and judicial proceedings,
  • anything done by or with the authority of the copyright owner where the copyright in the work originally vested in an employer,
  • where the work was made for the purpose of:
    • reporting current events,
    • a newspaper or periodical,
    • an encyclopaedia, dictionary, yearbook or other collective work of reference,
  • a work in which Government copyright subsists,
  • a work in which the copyright originally vested in a prescribed international organisation.

    • Furthermore, subject to certain exceptions and qualifications, the author of a work has the right to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to the work which would prejudice his or her reputation. This right is known as the integrity right.

    The paternity and integrity rights are incapable of assignment or alienation but may be waived.

    Other moral rights are the right not to have a work falsely attributed to a person as the author and the right to privacy in photographs and films where they are commissioned for private and domestic purposes.

    Registration of Copyright

    It is not necessary to register copyright in a work in Ireland as copyright subsists automatically.

    Is a Copyright Notice required?

    No, a copyright notice is not required. However, it is recommended that notification that copyright subsists be given. This may be achieved by the following marking:-

    ©  Name of owner/year of publication

    Duration of Copyright

    Type of Work

    Term

    Literary, Dramatic, Musical, Artistic

    70 years after the death of the author

    Film

    70 years after the last of the following people die:

  • the Principal Director
  • the author of the screenplay
  • the author of the dialogue
  • the author of the music specifically composed for use in the film.
    		•

    Sound Recording

    50 years after sound recording is made

    Computer Generated Work

    70 years after the date on which the work is first lawfully made available to the public

    Overlap between Copyright and Industrial Designs

    It is the purpose of the applicable legislation, Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000/Industrial Designs Act, 2001, to differentiate insofar as it is possible to do, between “Artistic Works” protectable by Copyright and the design of a product.

    Design is defined in accordance with Directive 98/71/EC and it is recognised that an artistic work may be protected both by Copyright and by a Design Right which may be registered or unregistered. The best illustrative example, although not the only, is where the design consists of surface decoration.

    In Ireland, it is not an infringement of the copyright in a two dimensional work to make a three dimensional object if:

    • the object would not appear, to a person who is not an expert in relation to such objects, to be a reproduction of the two dimensional work; or
    • the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture and materials of the product or its ornamentation are wholly or substantially functional and more than 50 such objects have been manufactured and made commercially available by or with the consent the owner of the copyright, with the exception that this does not apply to a work relating to a work of architecture.

    In the UK, where such a design is applied to a product by an industrial process, the copyright is not effective against a third party who copies the product after 25 years from the end of the calendar year the product was first placed on the market. In addition, it is not an infringement of the copyright in a design document or model recording or embodying a design for anything other than an artistic work (or typeface) by making or copying a product disclosed in the design document or model.

    For a detailed commentary on Irish Copyright and Design Law, please refer to Prof. Robert Clark’s work of that title published by Butterworths.

    Last Updated :

    Tuesday, January 22, 2008