- Arrangement of Provisions
- 1. Short title, commencement and application
- 2. Interpretation
- PART 1 COPYRIGHT
- 3. Works protected
- 4. Derivative works
- 5. Subject matter not protected
- 6. Economic Rights
- 7. Moral rights
- 8. Private reproduction for personal purposes
- 9. Quotation
- 10. Reproduction for teaching
- 11. Reproduction by libraries and archives
- 12. Reproduction, Broadcasting and other communication to the public for information purposes
- 13. Reproduction and adaptation of computer programs
- 14. Importation for personal purposes
- 15. Display of works
- 16. Duration of Copyright
- 17. Original ownership of economic rights
- 18. Presumption of authorship and of representation of the author
- 19. Assignment and license of authors’ rights
- PART II PROTECTION OF PERFORMERS ETC
- PART III ENFORCEMENT OF RIGHTS
- PART IV PROTECTION OF EXPRESSIONS OF FOLKLORE
- PART V MISCELLANEOUS
- REVISION NOTES 2008
- REVISION NOTES 2008 No. 2
Copyright Act 1998
CONSOLIDATED ACTS OF SAMOA 2008
COPYRIGHT ACT 1998
Arrangement of Provisions
TITLE 1. Short title, commence-ment and application 2. Interpretation
PART 1 COPYRIGHT
3. Works protected 4. Derivative works 5. Subject matter not protected 6. Economic Rights 7. Moral Rights 8. Private reproduction for personal purposes 9. Quotation 10. Reproduction for teaching 11. Reproduction by libraries and archives 12. Reproduction, Broadcasting and other communication to the public for information purposes 13. Reproduction and Adaptation of computer programs 14. Importation for personal purposes 15. Display of works 16. Duration of Copyright 17. Original ownership of economic rights 18. Presumption of authorship and representation of the author 19. Assignment and license of authors rights.
PART II PROTECTION OF PERFORMERS ETC
20. Acts requiring authorisation of performers 21. Acts requiring authorisation of producers of sound recordings 22. Equitable remuneration for use of sound recordings 23. Acts requiring authorization of broadcasting organizations 24. Limitations on protection
PART III ENFORCEMENT OF RIGHTS
25. Injunctions and other remedies 26. Civil remedies 27. Criminal sanctions 28. Remedies for unlawful acts
PART IV PROTECTION OF EXPRESSIONS OF FOLKLORE
29. Rights protected 30. Infringement of folklore
PART V MISCELLANEOUS
31. Scope of application 32. Protection of performers 33. Application of international treaties 34. Miscellaneous provisions 35. Regulations
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THE COPYRIGHT ACT 1998
1998 No. 25
AN ACT to make provision for the protection of Copyright and other similar rights.
(16 July 1998)
BE IT ENACTED by the Legislative Assembly of Samoa in Parliament assembled as follows:- 1. Short title, commencement and application-
(1) This Act may be cited as the Copyright Act 1998 .
(2) This Act shall come into force by notice to that effect published by the Minister in the Gazette or the Savali. (3) The provisions of this Act shall apply also to works, performances, sound recordings and broadcasts dating back to before the date of the coming into effect of this Act, provided that the term of protection had not expired by law or under the legislation of the country of origin of such works, performances, sound recordings or broadcasts that are to be protected under an international treaty to which Samoa is party, and to that extent this Act shall have retrospective effect:
Provided that this Act shall not affect the terms or validity of contracts on works, performances, sound recordings and broadcasts concluded before the entering into force of this Act.
2. Interpretation - In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires:
"Audiovisual work" means a work that consists of a series of related images which impart the impression of motion, with or without accompanying sounds, susceptible of being made visible, and where accompanied by sounds, susceptible of being made audible:
"Author" means the physical person who has created the work:
"Broadcasting" means the communication of a work, a performance or a sound recording to the public by radio, television or other transmission, including transmission by satellite:
"Collective work" means a work created by two or more physical persons at the initiative and under the direction of a physical person or legal entity, with the understanding that it will be disclosed by the latter person or entity under his, her or its own name and that the identity of the contributing physical persons will not be indicated:
"Communication to the public" means the transmission of the images or sounds, or both, of a work, a performance or a sound recording in such a way that the images or sounds can be perceived by persons outside the normal circle of a family and its closest social acquaintances at a place or places so distant from the place where the transmission originates that, without the transmission, the images or sounds would not be perceivable and, further, irrespective of whether the persons can receive the images or sounds at the same place and time, or at different places and/or times:
"Computer" means an electronic or similar device having information-processing capabilities; and a "computer program" is a set of instructions expressed in words, codes, schemes or in any other form, which is capable, when incorporated in a medium that the computer can read, or causing a computer to perform or achieve a particular task or result:
"Court" means the Supreme Court of Samoa:
"Economic rights" means the rights referred to in section 6:
"Expression of folklore" means a group-oriented and tradition-based creation of groups or individuals reflecting the expectation of the community as an adequate expression of its cultural and social identity, its standards and values as transmitted orally, by imitation or by other means, including –
(a) Folktales, folk poetry, and folk riddles;
(b) Folk songs and instrumental folk music;
(c) Folk dances and folk plays;
(d). Production of folk arts in particular, drawings, paintings, carvings, sculptures, pottery, terra-cotta, mosaic, woodwork, metal ware, jewelry, handicrafts, costumes, and indigenous textiles;
"Infringement" means any act that violates any rights protected under this Act:
"Moral rights" means the rights referred to in section 7:
"Minister" means the Minister of Justice:
"Owner of copyright" means –
(a) Where the economic rights are vested in the author, the author;
(b) Where the economic rights are originally vested in a physical person other than the author or a legal entity, that person or entity;
(c) Where the ownership of the economic rights has been transferred to a physical person or legal entity, that person or entity;
"Performers" includes singers, musicians, and other persons, who sing, deliver, declaim, play in, or otherwise perform literary and artistic works or expressions of folklore:
"Photographic work" means the recording of light or other radiation on any medium on which an image is produced or from which an image may be produced, irrespective of the technique (chemical, electronic or other) by which such recording is made; a still picture extracted from an audiovisual work shall not be considered a "photographic work" but a part of the audiovisual work concerned:
"Producer" of an audiovisual work or a sound recording, means the physical person or legal entity that undertakes the initiative and responsibility for the making of the audiovisual work or sound recording:
"Public display" means the showing of the original or a copy of the work –
(a) Directly;
(b) By means of a film, slide, television image or otherwise on screen;
(c) By means of any other device or process; or
(d) In the case of an audiovisual work, the showing of individual images nonsequentially,
at a place or places where persons outside the normal circle of a family and its closest social acquaintances are or can be present, irrespective of whether they are or can be present at the same place and time or at different places and/or times, and where the work can be displayed without communication to the public within the meaning of communication to the public:
"Public lending" means the transfer of the possession of the original or a copy of a work or a sound recording for a limited period of time for non-profit making purposes, by an institution, the services of which are available to the public, such as a public library or archive:
"Public performance" means –
(a) In the case of a work other than an audio-visual work, the recitation, playing, dancing, acting or otherwise performing the work, either directly or by means of any device or process;
(b) In the case of an audiovisual work, the showing of images in sequence and the making of accompanying sounds audible; and
(c) In the case of sound recording, making the recording sounds audible at a place or at places where persons outside the normal circle of the family and its closest acquaintances are or can be
present, irrespective of whether they are or can be present at the same place and time, or at different places and/or times, and where the performances can be perceived without the need for communication to the public within the meaning of communication to the public:
"Published" refers to a work or a sound recording –
(a) Copies of which have been made available to the public in a reasonable quantity for sale, rental, public lending or for other transfer of the ownership or the possession of the copies; or
(b) Which have been made available to the public by means of an electronic retrieval system, provided that, in the case of a work, the making available to the public took place with the consent of the author or other owner of copyright, and in the case of sound recording, with the consent of the producer of the sound recording or his or her successor in title;
"Rental" means the transfer of the possession of the original or a copy of a work or sound recording for a limited period of time for profit-making purposes:
"Reproduction" means the making of one or more copies of a work or sound recording in any material form, including any permanent or temporary storage of the work or sound recording in electronic form:
"Sound recording" means any exclusively aural fixation of the sounds of a performance or of other sounds, regardless of the method by which the sounds are fixed or the medium in which the sounds are embodied; it does not include a fixation of sounds and images, such as the sound track of an audiovisual work:
"Work" means any literary or artistic work under section 3 (1):
"Work of applied art" means an artistic creation with utilitarian functions or incorporated in a useful article, whether made by hand or produced on a industrial scale:
"Work of joint authorship" means a work to the creation of which two or more authors have contributed, provided the work does not qualify as a "collective work" as herein defined.
PART 1 COPYRIGHT
3. Works protected
(1) Literary and artistic works (herein-after referred to as "works") are original intellectual creations in the literary and artistic domain, including in particular -
(a) Books, pamphlets, articles, computer programs and other writings;
(b) Speeches, lectures, addresses, sermons and other oral works;
(c) Dramatic, dramatico-musical works, pantomimes, choreographic works and other works created for stage productions;
(d) Stage productions of works mentioned in the previous item and of expressions of folklore that are apt for such productions;
(e) Musical works, with or without accompanying words;
(f) Audiovisual works;
(g) Works or architecture;
(h) Works of drawing, painting, sculpture, engraving, lithography, tapestry and other works of fine art;
(i) Photographic works
(j) Works of applied art;
(k) Illustrations, maps, plans, sketches and three-dimensional works relative to geography, topography architecture or science.
(2) Works shall be protected by the sole fact of their creation and irrespective of their mode or form of expression, as well as of their content, quality and purpose. 4. Derivative works
(1) The following shall also be protected as works -
(a) Translations, adaptations, arrangements and other transformations or modifications of works; and
(b) Collections of works and collections of mere data (data bases), whether in machine readable or other form, provided that such collections are original by reason of the selection, coordination or arrangement of their contents.
(2) The protection of any work referred to in subsection (1) shall be without prejudice to any protection for pre-existing work incorporated in or utilized for the making of such a work. 5. Subject matter not protected
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 3 and 4, no protection shall extend under this Act to -
(a) Any idea, procedure, system, method of operation, concept, principle, discovery or mere data, even if expressed, described, explained, illustrated or embodied in a work;
(b) Any official text of a legislative, administrative or legal nature, as well as any official translation thereof.