المملكة: Urgent: Perpetual rights for the author, invalidation of the waiver… imprisonment and a fine of one million riyals for violators

The Copyright System

It clarifies the types of works, including the joint work, the collective work, the audio-visual work, the derivative work, and the orphan work whose author or right holder is not known or cannot be accessed.

The system affirmed that the author enjoys eternal literary rights that are not subject to assignment, alienation, or statute of limitations, and include the right to publish the work for the first time, Attributing it to him, publishing it under his name or under a pseudonym or anonymously, and objecting to any distortion or distortion that affects the work or harms his reputation. The management of these rights also passes to the successor-general after his death.

Licensing Right

The system grants the author an exclusive right to copy his work by any means, translate it, modify it, transform it into another form, perform it publicly, rent it commercially, broadcast it wired or wirelessly, and make it available to the public at any time and place, in addition to the right to license financial exploitation and distribution of the work, provided that the right of distribution is exhausted upon the first publication. Systematic.

Protection included a wide range of works, from books, lectures, speeches, and theatrical works, to plastic, musical, and audiovisual arts, photography works, maps, engineering designs and plans, computer programs and applications, in addition to databases and encyclopedias whenever they were distinguished by innovation in selection or arrangement.

Author’s financial rights

On the other hand, the system excluded ideas, procedures, work methods, and concepts. Sports, abstract facts, rules, regulations, judicial rulings, official documents, and daily news of a news nature, with protection applying to the method of collecting or arranging it whenever it is characterized by innovation.

In specific cases, it is permissible to use the work without the permission of the author and without compensation, such as copying works of applied arts or architectural facades permanently placed in public places through drawing or photography, provided that the financial rights of the author are not infringed.

Institutions Production

The system obliges production, printing, publishing, and distribution institutions and broadcasting organizations to conclude written contracts with rights holders before carrying out any activity related to copyright, provided that these contracts clearly define the rights and obligations. Any waiver of the author’s entire future intellectual production was also deemed invalid.

The system clarified the provisions for joint works, whereby partners are considered equal in ownership if it is not possible to separate their contributions, and none of them may exercise the rights alone except by agreement, with each partner having the right to take precautionary measures and demand compensation for his share of the damage.

It regulates the creation of works related to the employment relationship, where the rights revert to the employer if the innovation is related. With his activities, unless otherwise agreed, the rights remain for the worker if the work is not related to the employer’s business.

Prison and fine

The system has tightened the penalties for violators, as anyone who exploits a protected right for commercial purposes without permission, publishes a work that he does not own, claiming ownership, reprints a work without permission, or publishes Works, recordings, or programs broadcast on a large scale without the consent of rights holders.

The same penalties apply to those who circumvent technical protection measures, remove electronic information related to rights management, manufacture or import devices intended for circumvention, or maintain counterfeit or forged works for commercial purposes.

The system confirmed that the penalty will be doubled in the event of recidivism, and anyone who commits the violation again during the implementation of the penalty or within three years of its expiration is considered a repeat offender. Or forfeit by pardon.

Varying periods of protection

The system specifies the period of protection for the economic rights of the author throughout his life and for a period of 50 years after his death. For joint works, it is 50 years from the death of the last living author. As for works whose author is a legal or anonymous person, they are protected for a period of 50 years from the date of first publication.

The period of protection for audiovisual works is 50 years from the date of the first presentation or completion, and for collective works is 50 years. One year from the date of first publication, and works of applied arts 25 years from the first publication.

The rights of broadcasting organizations are also protected for 20 years from the first broadcast, and the rights of producers of sound recordings and performers for a period of 50 years according to the dates of publication or installation.