Czechia

[CZ] New consolidated copyright law

IRIS 1996-9:1/20

Andrea Schneider

Institute of European Media Law (EMR), Saarbrücken/Brussels

On 20.06.1996, the Parliament of the Czech Republic approved a new consolidated version of Czech copyright law (Law no.175 of 20.06.1996 on Literary, Scientific and Artistic Works). This law revises all copyright law in the Czech Republic, which had for a long time been based on the Law on literary, scientific and artistic works no. 35 of 25.03.1965, which was frequently amended, most recently by Law no. 237 of 27.09.1995 (as reported in IRIS no. 4/1996, p. 9).

The Law is divided into various sections, the first covering authors' rights, the second the rights of performing artists, and the fourth (the third has been dropped) the rights of producers of recordings and broadcasting operators; the fifth section contains final provisions.

According to Section 1, the Law applies not only to literary, dramatic, musical, architectural and art works, but also to film works and computer programs. Legal provisions, court decisions, public documents and speeches are however specifically excluded from the scope of the new law.