Copyright

Copyright is a form of protection which arises automatically whenever an original work is created. It protects many different types of original work.

Copyright is more usually though of as applying to books, music, films, etc. However in the area of industry and commerce there is some overlap between design right and copyright. Copyright is an unregistered right that applies in the Czech Republic and EU.

Under present law, copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years.

The author is the natural person who has created the work.

The copyright to a work which has been produced until the time of the completion of the work as a single work by the creative activity of two or more authors (work by joint authors) shall belong to all the joint authors jointly and inseparably. The establishment of a work by joint authors shall not be prejudiced if the creative contributions to the work by the individual joint authors can be distinguished, unless such contributions are capable of being used independently. Copyright shall include exclusive moral rights and exclusive economic rights.

Copyright shall not be infringed by whoever

• quotes, to a justified degree, in his own work, excerpts from the published works of other authors,
• includes into his independent scientific, critical or technical work, or into a work designated for teaching purposes, for the clarification of its content, small published works in their entirety,
• uses a published work in a lecture exclusively for scientific, teaching or other instructive or educational purposes;

the name of the author, unless the work is an anonymous work, or the name of the person under whose name the work is being introduced in public must however always be indicated; the title of the work and source must also be indicated.

Copyright shall not be infringed by whoever records or expresses by drawing, painting, graphic art, photography or film a work located on a square, in a street, in a park, on a public route or in any other public place; the author’s consent shall not be needed also for the reproduction, dissemination and communication to the public of the work recorded or expressed by such means.