In force
Saudi Copyright Law
نظام حماية حقوق المؤلف
The Copyright Law covers definitions, protected works, authors' rights, transfer of ownership, the scope and term of protection, deposit provisions, penalties, and general provisions.
- Articles
- 28
- In force
- 28
- Amended
- 0
- Issued
- 2/7/1424 AH
Issued by: مرسوم ملكي رقم م/41 بتاريخ 2 / 7 / 1424 · قرار مجلس الوزراء رقم 85 بتاريخ 9 / 4 / 1424
Each article shows the official Arabic text, which is the only legally binding version, followed by our plain-English explanation.
Browse Copyright Law by topic
Works Protected by Copyright8 articlesAuthor and Joint Works3 articlesAuthor's Moral and Financial Rights4 articlesTransfer of Copyright and Publishing Contracts5 articlesLawful Use of a Work without Permission4 articlesDuration of Copyright3 articlesCopyright Infringement and Penalties2 articlesRecording Copyright Violations and Grievance3 articles
Articles of the Saudi Copyright Law
- Article 1The article defines the key terms of the Copyright Law, such as work, author, publication, copying, joint work, collective work and folklore.
- Article 2The article protects every original work in literature, the arts and sciences whatever its type, form of expression, importance or purpose, giving examples such as software and the title of an original work.
- Article 3The article protects derivative works such as translations, summaries, commentaries, encyclopedias and original databases, without prejudice to the rights of the authors of the original works.
- Article 4The article excludes from the law's protection laws, judgments and official documents and their official translations, daily news, and mere ideas, procedures, principles and facts.
- Article 5The article treats as author the person under whose name a work is published unless proven otherwise, makes the publisher the representative of an anonymous or pseudonymous author, and identifies the authors of audio and audiovisual works.
- Article 6The article regulates the rights of partners in a joint work according to whether their contributions can be separated, and gives only the person who directed a collective work the right to exercise the author's rights.
- Article 7The article makes folklore public property of the state with the Ministry exercising the author's rights, and prohibits importing or distributing copies or translations produced outside the Kingdom without the Ministry's license.
- Article 8The article sets out the author's moral rights, such as attribution of the work and preventing its distortion, modification and withdrawal, makes them perpetual, non-waivable and not lost by lapse of time, and passes them to the Ministry on death without an heir.
- Article 9The article gives the author or his delegate the financial rights to print, publish, translate, adapt and communicate the work to the public and every form of material exploitation, and refers the rights of performers and others to the regulations.
- Article 10The article obliges the author not to obstruct the exploitation right he has authorized for another, and allows him to withdraw or modify the work by agreement with the authorized person, otherwise compensating him as the Committee determines.
- Article 11The article allows the author's rights to pass in whole or in part by inheritance or by a written disposition specified in time and place, passes them to heirs except modification and deletion, and requires the author's will on publication to be carried out.
- Article 12The article declares void an author's waiver of the whole of his future intellectual output.
- Article 13The article requires right holders and production, printing, publishing, distribution and broadcasting institutions to organize their relations by documented contracts, and bars those institutions from any activity involving authors' rights before contracting.
- Article 14The article binds an author's heirs to the contracts their predecessor concluded in his lifetime, with the rights and obligations they contain toward others.
- Article 15The article lists lawful uses of a protected work without the right holders' consent, such as personal copying, quotation, teaching, news reporting and a backup copy of software, with specific conditions for each case.
- Article 16The article allows the Minister to grant a compulsory license to publish a work in the public interest in specified cases, ending when the right holder publishes it, with a financial reward set by the Minister that can be challenged before the Board of Grievances.
- Article 17The article bars publishing, displaying or distributing a photograph without the permission of those photographed or their heirs except in specified cases, and gives an author alone the right to publish his letters, with the recipient's permission if publication would harm him.
- Article 18The article sets which works the law applies to: those first published in the Kingdom by any author, works of Saudis first published abroad, works of broadcasters, recordings and performers, and works protected by international agreements.
- Article 19The article sets the terms of copyright protection: the author's life plus fifty years after death as the rule, with special terms for joint, anonymous, audiovisual works, software, photographs, broadcasting and recordings.
- Article 20The article extends protection to works, recordings and broadcast programs published before the law took effect, for the terms in Article 19, provided their protection had not expired under the previous law or lapsed in the country of origin.
- Article 21The article lists acts that infringe authors' rights, such as publishing without permission, reprinting, removing electronic protection, using pirated software, copying without written consent, and importing imitations.
- Article 22The article sets the penalties for violating the law, from a warning and a fine up to SAR 250,000 to closure, confiscation and imprisonment up to 6 months, with doubling for repeat offending and the Committee's powers on compensation, publicity and interim measures.
- Article 23The article gives anyone against whom the violations Committee issues a decision the right to challenge it before the Board of Grievances within 60 days of being notified of the decision.
- Article 24The article gives the Ministry's competent employees, with judicial police status, the power to catch violations, visit establishments that use works, investigate and seize evidence, under procedures set by the Implementing Regulations.
- Article 25The article provides for a committee to consider violations, formed by decision of the Minister with at least three members including a legal adviser and a Sharia adviser, whose decisions are issued by majority and approved by the Minister.
- Article 26The article directs the Minister to issue the Implementing Regulations of the Copyright Law within six months and publish them in the Official Gazette.
- Article 27The article provides that this law replaces the previous Copyright Law issued by Royal Decree No. M/11 dated 19/5/1410 AH.
- Article 28The article provides that the Copyright Law is published in the Official Gazette and takes effect six months after its publication.
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