Rules Of Copyright in Singapore – What is Copyright? Copyright or authorship in work means power and privilege to prohibit the following. Read on – Rules Of Copyright in Singapore
A copyright license is a contract between a person who wants to use copyrighted material legally and a copyright owner/creator, which allows these parties to legally use the copyrighted material.
The copyright license sets out conditions for using the copyrighted work that is sought to be used. For example, a copyright license may allow an individual or organization to make personal copies of a literary or musical work obtained legally but not distribute these copies in any way.
The Intellectual Property Act governs Copyright in Singapore. To obtain copyright protection, your work must be of ‘sufficient intellectual skill,’ and the author of the work must have been a qualified person.
The Copyright Act also specifies certain acts which are not infringing Copyright, providing they are done for non-profit purposes and by educational institutions or libraries or archives.
In Singapore, any idea or concept expressed is not protected by copyright law unless expressed in a material form that qualifies for copyright protection. If you don’t keep a proper record or properly file your works, you’ll be unable to claim it back from someone who has stolen your work.
Moral rights include the right to attribution of work, object to derogatory treatment of work, and the right to privacy of certain photos or films. They are personal rights belonging to the author/creator of the work, which cannot be assigned or transferred to anyone else.
Infringement occurs when someone does any of the following without the authorization of the copyright owner:
You owe your readers, viewers, or players the following duties:
Public domain refers to works whose copyrights have expired or do not qualify for copyright protection because the owners have not asserted their intellectual property rights.
To ensure that your Copyright over your work is protected, you need to:
Copyright protection commences on the date of creation, not publication. If you had a work registered with NLB earlier but did not submit your copyright annotation to the copyright office, it will be hard for you to claim back your rights over the use or reproduction of your work by other parties.
According to Section 40 of the Copyright Act, works are protected for 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which it was published. The duration of Copyright may vary according to when the work was created.
In conclusion, Singapore copyright laws are not very complicated because they seek to maintain fairness between all parties more than anything else. If you allow others to act freely without infringing on their rights, you will be infringing on your rights in the long run.
Also, make sure that if you want to stop someone from doing something, it is because this something infringes on your rights and not because of mere ignorance.