Egyptian copyright law
Encyclopedia
Egyptian copyright law has evolved over time. The currently applicable legislation in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 with regard to copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...

 is Book Three of the Law on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights 82 of 2002, which entered into force on 3 June 2002, the day following its publication in the Official Gazette. The implementing decree is Prime Ministerial Decree 497 of 2005 (effective by Issue No. 12, Official Gazette, 29 March 2005).

Legislative texts

Prior to 1954, there was no legislation in Egypt protecting artistic and literary property
Literary property
Literary property is a term used in publishing to refer to works generally covered by copyright but also an associated set of property rights that go far beyond what courts have historically permitted to be claimed as copyright infringement....

. Despite the absence of any such legislation, indigenous and mixed courts invoked principles of natural law
Natural law
Natural law, or the law of nature , is any system of law which is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal. Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law Natural...

 and justice
Justice
Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...

 to protect intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...

 rights. However, indigenous and mixed courts had two different approaches to sanctioning violations. Indigenous courts refused to apply criminal law
Criminal law
Criminal law, is the body of law that relates to crime. It might be defined as the body of rules that defines conduct that is not allowed because it is held to threaten, harm or endanger the safety and welfare of people, and that sets out the punishment to be imposed on people who do not obey...

 provisions, on the ground that no criminal responsibility could be determined in the absence of a specific legislative text dealing with artistic and literary property. On the other hand, mixed courts did not wait for implementing regulations to be enacted. In a hearing on 17 February 1941, the Criminal Chamber of Cassation, Mixed Court of Appeal, ruled that performance of a song or musical composition, without the authorization of the author or composer, was considered as an offence punishable under Article 351 of the Penal Law.

Law 354 of 1954

Literary and artistic protection were dealt with for the first time by Egyptian law in 1954, with the promulgation of Law No. 354 of 1954 on the Protection of Copyright. Article 20 of the law provided for a term of protection of 50 years after the author's death, although this was reduced to 15 years from publication in the case of "works of photography and audiovisual works that are not of creative character
Creative work
A creative work is a tangible manifestation of creative effort such as literature, music, paintings, and software. Creative works have in common a degree of arbitrariness, such that it is improbable that two people would independently create the same work. Creative works are part of property...

 and merely consist of a mechanical reproduction of scenes." Official documents
Official text copyright
Official texts, as defined in Article 2 of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, are texts of a legislative, administrative and legal nature and the official translations of such texts....

 were explicitly excluded from copyright protection (Art. 4).

Law 82 of 2002

The 1954 law was repealed in its entirety when the new Intellectual Property Law 82 of 2002 entered into force on 3 June 2002. The new law retains many provisions contained in the previous law, notably the 50-year p.m.a. term of copyright protection (Art. 160). However, it also introduces several new concepts, among them the concept of national folklore (Art. 138 & 142). The new law also deals for the first time ever with the protection of neighbouring rights
Related rights
Related rights is a term in copyright law, used in opposition to the term "authors' rights". The term neighbouring rights is exactly equivalent, and is a more literal translation of the original French droits voisins. Related rights in civil law are similar to authors' rights, but are not connected...

 (Art. 153 and following).

However, the new law is not without its critics. The International Intellectual Property Alliance
International Intellectual Property Alliance
The International Intellectual Property Alliance , formed in 1984, is a private sector coalition of seven trade associations representing U.S...

 (IIPA) has repeatedly highlighted in its reports a number of shortcomings in the law, stating in its Special 301 Report published in 2009 that "the Copyright Law and the Implementing Decree, while suitable to enforce against copyright piracy in general, left unresolved some TRIPS
Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
The Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights is an international agreement administered by the World Trade Organization that sets down minimum standards for many forms of intellectual property regulation as applied to nationals of other WTO Members...

 deficiencies, other ambiguities in protection, and important gaps for protection recommended by IIPA in order to modernize protection." Among the controversial provisions of the law is Article 148, which states that all foreign-language literary works fall into the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...

 if they are not translated into Arabic within three years of publication.

Proposal to copyright antiquities

In late 2007, reports surfaced in the media that Egypt intended to pass a law requiring the payment of royalties
Royalties
Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...

 whenever copies were made of its antiquities
Antiquities
Antiquities, nearly always used in the plural in this sense, is a term for objects from Antiquity, especially the civilizations of the Mediterranean: the Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt and the other Ancient Near Eastern cultures...

 and monuments. Zahi Hawass
Zahi Hawass
Zahi Hawass is an Egyptian archaeologist, an Egyptologist, and former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs. He has also worked at archaeological sites in the Nile Delta, the Western Desert, and the Upper Nile Valley....

, the head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities
Supreme Council of Antiquities
The Supreme Council of Antiquities is the branch of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture responsible for the conservation, protection and regulation of all antiquities and archaeological excavations in Egypt...

, told AFP
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse is a French news agency, the oldest one in the world, and one of the three largest with Associated Press and Reuters. It is also the largest French news agency. Currently, its CEO is Emmanuel Hoog and its news director Philippe Massonnet...

 news agency that the law would not affect buildings such as the Luxor Las Vegas hotel because it was not an exact copy of a pyramid and its interior was completely different. BBC News
BBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...

 stated that "MPs are expected to pass" the law, although it is unclear whether the proposal ever made it through Parliament
Parliament of Egypt
The Parliament of Egypt is the currently dissolved bicameral legislature of Egypt. The Parliament is located in Cairo, Egypt's capital. As the legislative branch of the Egyptian government, the Parliament enacts laws, approves the general policy of the State, the general plan for economic and...

.

International agreements

Egypt is a signatory to various international copyright agreements. The Berne Convention
Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, is an international agreement governing copyright, which was first accepted in Berne, Switzerland in 1886.- Content :...

 entered into force in Egypt on 7 June 1977, and the Phonograms Convention on 23 April 1978. Egypt became a member of the World Trade Organization
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...

 on 30 June 1995.

Piracy

As early as 1985, Egypt has been targeted by the IIPA
International Intellectual Property Alliance
The International Intellectual Property Alliance , formed in 1984, is a private sector coalition of seven trade associations representing U.S...

. Based on the results of the Special 301 Report (which "examines in detail the adequacy and effectiveness of intellectual property rights" in many countries around the world), the United States Trade Representative
Office of the United States Trade Representative
The Office of the United States Trade Representative is the United States government agency responsible for developing and recommending United States trade policy to the president of the United States, conducting trade negotiations at bilateral and multilateral levels, and coordinating trade...

 (USTR) placed Egypt on the Priority Watch List in 1992. The USTR lowered Egypt to the Watch List in 2008. The problem of piracy
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...

is pervasive in Egypt. The IIPA stated in a 2009 report that Egypt is "a nightmare market for right holders, stunted by piracy, difficult bureaucracy, and almost unparalleled market access hurdles." Trade losses due to copyright piracy amounted to nearly $119 million in 2007, with a piracy level of 32% for books and 15% for records and music.

External links

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