KUALA LUMPUR, June 16 — Copyright is a legal right given to the authors or creators of works. Under copyright law, the copyright owner has a number of exclusive rights including the right to publish the work, control copying, prepare derivative works as well as the right to make the material available online.

Copyright is really a set of rights — copyright owners have economic and moral rights as well as legal rights. Copyright law aims to protect the creative work of the copyright owner from unauthorised use by others.

Copyright law also tries to balance this right with the general public’s right to access information.

What does copyright protect?

Copyright protects the written expression of an idea or concept — it does not protect the actual idea or concept itself. Copyright doesn’t give the author of a work monopoly over the ideas or information expressed in that work — anyone can use the ideas contained in a work provided there is no “substantial similarity” to the original work.

There isn’t necessarily a connection between the ownership of an item and the ownership of copyright in the item. When you buy a book, an artwork or a DVD you do not automatically acquire the copyright in that book or artwork. The copyright remains with the author or the artist unless there has been an agreement to transfer ownership of copyright.

Generally, copyright doesn’t protect the names, titles and slogans as these are not usually considered to be substantial works which are the result of sufficient skill and labour.

However, other forms of legislation such as trademark and trade practices may be relevant. Copyright also does not cover ideas or concepts; it just protects the expression of the idea or concept.

Basic facts such as names and addresses are usually not protected by copyright although the methodology used to arrange them in a database may be protected.

Legislation

In Malaysia, copyright law is covered under the Malaysian Copyright Act 1987 and its associated Regulations. According to the Act, the following works are eligible for copyright: (a) literary works; (b) musical works; (c) artistic works; (d) films; (e) sound recordings; (f) broadcasts; and (g) derivative works.

The Act also states that the works shall be protected irrespective of their quality and the purpose for which they were created. However, copyright protection shall not extend to any idea, procedure, method of operation or mathematical concept as such.

A literary, musical or artistic work shall not be eligible for copyright unless — (a) sufficient effort has been expended to make the work original in character; and (b) the work has been written down, recorded or otherwise reduced to material form. A work shall be ineligible for copyright by reason only that the making of the work, or the doing of any act in relation to the work involves an infringement of copyright in some other work.

Obtaining copyright protection

Copyright protection is automatic under the Laws of Malaysia from the moment you place your work in a material form. This includes writing down, recording or filming your work. A work doesn’t have to be published to be protected by copyright — copyright also protects unpublished works.

Malaysia does not have an obligatory system of copyright registration, so a work does not have to go through a registration process before it can be protected by copyright. However, there is a copyright voluntary notification system established by the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO) where copyright owners can register their works with MyIPO.

Owners’ rights

The Copyright Act gives the copyright owner a number of exclusive rights in relation to their works including the right to control the reproduction of their work; moral rights in their work; and performers’ rights in their work.

Reproduction rights

This group of rights allows a copyright owner to control the reproduction of their work. Usually you need the copyright owner’s permission before you can reproduce their work without infringing their copyright. Copyright owners can exercise these rights themselves or they may give someone else permission to exercise those rights. This permission is usually referred to as assigning rights or granting a licence.

Copyright owners often grant a licence to permit use of their work in return for the payment of fees or royalties. The licence will usually set out the conditions such as the purposes for which the work can be used and the duration of the licence (a) to publish their work; (b) to make copies of their work; (c) to make their work available online by placing it on a website; (d) to perform their work in public to make adaptations of their work including translations of literary works, arrangements of musical works and sampling parts of musical works.

Moral rights

Moral rights apply to most types of material protected by copyright such as literary, dramatic, artistic and musical works. The Copyright Act grants individual copyright owners three main moral rights: (1) the right of attribution — the right to be identified as the author of the work; (2) the right against false attribution — the right to take action against false attribution; (3) the right of integrity — the right to object to derogatory treatment of their work which prejudicially affects their reputation or honour. Moral rights recognise that a work can be an extension of the creator’s personality and that the relationship between the creator and their work should be respected.

Software copyright

Software copyright is the extension of copyright law to machine-readable software. Software copyright is used by proprietary software companies to prevent the unauthorised copying of their software. Free and open source licenses also rely on copyright law to enforce their terms.

Do you own copyright?

If you do own copyright PlaTCOM Ventures can help you identify your rights and advise you on how to best manage your copyright in order to minimise infringement by third parties. Furthermore, PlaTCOM specialises in licensing Intellectual Property Rights including copyright and we are best placed to assist you in licensing and/or commercialising your copyright works.

Your feedback is welcome at info@platcomventures.com