Bulgaria

[BG] Act Amending and Complementing the Penal Code of 1968 Adopted on 19 May 1995

IRIS 1995-7:1/8

Radomir Tscholakov

Bulgarian National Television

Para. 1-6. The heading of Section VII of Chapter III of the Special Part shall be reworded as follows: "Indictable offences against intellectual property".

Para. 17. A new Article 172a shall be incorporated: Art. 172a (1) Anyone who for commercial purposes copies, disseminates, uses technical means to reproduce or in any way exploits a work of science, literature or art produced by another person without securing the rightsholder's consent, as required by law, shall be liable to imprisonment for up to three years and a fine of up to 200,000 leva. (2) The same penalty shall also apply to anyone who for commercial purposes records, copies, transmits, uses technical means to reproduce or otherwise exploits a sound recording, video, broadcast, software or computer programme without securing the rightsholder's consent, as required by law. (3) If the offence defined in (1) and (2) is repeated, or if it has caused particularly serious damage, the offender shall be liable to imprisonment for a period of one to five years and to a fine of up to 500,000 leva. (4) In relatively unimportant cases, the offender shall be punished in accordance with the administrative law provisions of the law on copyright and associated rights. (5) Objects connected with the offence shall be confiscated by the state, insofar as they belong to the offender.