Croatia

[HR] Act on Copyright and Related Rights

IRIS 2003-10:1/34

Nives Zvonarić

Ministry of Culture, Zagreb, Croatia

The Zakon o autorskom pravu i srodnim pravima (Act on Copyrights and Related Rights) came into force in October 2003. It regulates copyrights (author’s rights over their work in literature, science and art field), related rights (rights of artists over their performances, rights of phonogram producers over their phonograms, rights of film producers over their films, rights of broadcasting organisations for point-to-multipoint communication on their broadcasting, rights of publishers over their editions, rights of database producers over their database), the assertion (individually and collectively) of copyrights and related rights, as well as the protection of copyright and related rights in case of breaches.

Article 2 of the Law on Copyrights and Related Rights stipulates that copyrights over a work belong, at its nature, to the physical person who created it. Article 5 of the mentioned Law prescribes that copyright protects every original intellectual activity in the field of literature, science and art which has individual character, regardless of its form or mode of expression, type, value or assignment.

Authors and their successors enjoy (Articles 14 to 32 of the Law):

- moral rights: the author’s right to decide when and in which manner his/her work will be accessible to the public; the author’s right to be acknowledged and marked as the author of the work; the author’s right to object to changes in the work or usage in a manner which could harm its honour or reputation;

- exclusive property rights: the author can, according to his will, prohibit or permit the usage of his copyright; this right includes the right of reproduction, distribution, public performance, translation into other languages or its adaptation;

- other rights: this includes a fee which is given to the author when a natural person makes a copy for private and personal use.

The duration of authors property rights are limited in time. The timetable is:

- Authors rights: 70 years from the author’s death (Articles 99);

- Performances rights: 50 years after the first performance (Articles 131);

- Rights of phonogram producers: 50 years from the production of the first phonogram (Article 137);

- rights of video makers: 50 years from the date of creation (Article 202);

- Broadcasting organisations for point-to-multipoint communication: 50 years from the first broadcasting date (Article 144);

- rights of database producers: 15 years form the finishing date of the database (Article 152).

The Law on Electronic Media stipulates in Article 13, paragraph 3 that radio and/or television broadcasters must comply with copyrights and related rights when producing or publishing programme contents, and have to have obtained permission of the Association for the collective implementation of rights.