The Criminal Framework of Copyright Protection
Infringement of copyright and neighbouring rights is criminalized in Georgia by a single norm — Article 189 of the Criminal Code — which simultaneously covers appropriation of authorship, coercion into co-authorship and large-scale piracy. The American Digital Millennium Copyright framework does not apply here: Georgian criminal liability is built on consequential thresholds — the amount of income and repetitiveness — and precisely these thresholds decide under which part of the article the case is punished.
Appropriation of Authorship and Coercion — the First Parts
The first part of the article governs the appropriation of authorship of an object of copyright, or coercion into co-authorship — the sanction is a fine or corrective labour for up to two years. The second part aggravates the same conduct where committed more than once: house arrest from six months to one year, or imprisonment for up to three years. These two parts protect personal, non-property interests — the author's name and the voluntariness of collaboration — and their protection requires no quantitative threshold: a single episode suffices. In practice, the question of qualification arises precisely on these parts: appropriation of authorship and unlawful use of a work are not the same — the former is the taking of a name, the latter a proprietary use — and different parts of the article are distributed over them differently. Where the prosecution confuses these two forms, the qualification changes and the defence gains a separate argument.
Large-Scale Infringement — the Third and Fourth Parts
The third part covers the property side: reproduction of a work, phonogram, videogram or database in breach of the Law on Copyright and Neighbouring Rights, or the unauthorized acquisition, import, storage, sale, rental, transfer of their copies, or other infringement of rights — committed for the purpose of receiving income in a large amount — punished by a fine or house arrest from one to two years. The fourth part aggravates the same conduct where committed for especially large income or by a group with prior conspiracy — imprisonment for up to three years. The note defines both thresholds numerically: a large amount exists where the value of the copies, or the income receivable under lawful use, exceeds five thousand GEL; especially large — ten thousand GEL. For the defence such thresholds create a concrete calculus: the prosecution must establish not only the infringement but also the purpose and the value criterion. The value criterion is twofold: either the value of the copies or — in the case of lawful use — the income receivable by the right-holder is calculated, and crossing the threshold of either one changes the qualification. The fourth part names two independent aggravating circumstances — the purpose of especially large income and commission by a group with prior conspiracy — and each of them alone suffices for the case to be assessed under this part.