Copyright law of the Netherlands

According to the Dutch Copyright Law (called Auteurswet), a Dutch copyright (called auteursrecht) is the exclusive right of the author of a work of literature, science or art, to publish and duplicate such work (article 1).

A copyright comes into existence by making the work. No formalities, such as copyright registration, are necessary to obtain a copyright. The duration of a copyright is 70 years after the death of the author (article 37).

The term "work" includes many materials, such as books, brochures, films, photographs, musical works, works of visual art and geographical maps (article 10). Further, the Dutch Supreme Court has ruled that to be considered a work, it should have its own, original character with the personal imprint of the author (HR 4 January 1991, NJ 1991, 608(Van Dale/Romme)).

The exclusive right to publish a work includes amongst others the publication of a copy of (part of) the work, the public recitation thereof and to rent or lend (part of) the work to public institutions (article 12). The exclusive right to duplicate a work includes amongst others the recording, the translation, the music arrangement and the adaptation for the screen of the work (article 13).

Specific features

The right to homecopy

In certain circumstances, one is allowed to make a copy of copyright materials.

  1. The home copy is not, direct or indirect, means for monetary gain;
  2. The copy serves exclusively to own practice, study or use;
  3. The number of copies are limited, or the creator of additional copies compensates the holder.

The Belgium law has similar regulation in their Auteurswet (art. 22 § 1, 5°).

On 10 April 2014 the European Court of Justice ruled the Dutch exclusion for home-copying to be infringing the directive 2001/29/EG - article 5 § 2- b and § 5. According to EU directive, this makes homecopying unlawful. There have been other cases in which Dutch Auteurswet has been ruled unlawful. The Netherlands however has not changed said article nor complied to the request to make prosecuting those whom homecopy possible.

History

Historically, governments issued monopolierechten (monopoly-rights) to publishers for the sale of printed work. Great Britain was the first to change this in 1710 with the Statute of Anne, which stated that authors, not publishers, had the right to claim a monopoly on the work. It also entailed protection for buyers of printed work in that publishers were no longer allowed to control the use of sold works. Furthermore, it limited exclusive rights to 28 years, after which the work or works would be released to the public domain.

The Berne Convention in 1886 was the first multilateral treaty to provide for reciprocal treatment of copyrights among sovereign nations. Under the Berne Convention the right of ownership (eigendomsrecht in Dutch) was automatically granted to every creative work. The author no longer needed to register the work, and was not required to apply for copyright coverage.

The Berne Convention is still in effect today. When a work is finished (defined as being written or recorded on a physical medium), the author automatically receives all exclusive rights for that work as well as derivatives, unless and until the author explicitly renounces those rights or the copyright expires. The expiration time differs from country to country, but according to the Berne Convention the minimum duration is the lifetime of the author plus 50 years.

International laws and treaties

Copyright laws differ between countries. However, there are several international treaties concerning copyright, including:

There are also many other treaties that settle specific parts of copyright. Examples are the European Directive on Copyright Protection of Software (Europese Richtlijn op de Auteursrechtelijke Bescherming van Software) and the European Directive on Neighboring Rights (Europese Richtlijn op de Naburige Rechten).

References

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, April 13, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.