Publishing law rests on the Law on Copyright and Neighbouring Rights: every stage of a book, journal or digital edition — from manuscript to printed or electronic copy — is governed by the provisions of that law. For a publisher four questions are decisive: what counts as a protected object, which categories the protection covers, how copyright arises, and who is presumed to be the author. This page explains these foundations on the basis of articles five, six, nine and ten of the law.
What Is an Object of Copyright
Under article five, copyright extends to works of science, literature and art that are the result of intellectual-creative activity, irrespective of the purpose, merit, genre, volume, form or means of expression of the work. This means that literary quality is irrelevant to protection — it is enough that the text is the result of creative effort. The right covers a work existing in objective form, regardless of whether it has been published or made publicly known.
Copyright, however, does not extend to ideas, methods, processes, systems, means, concepts, principles, discoveries or facts, even where they are expressed, described or explained in a work. For a publisher this means that a topic, the concept of a plot or informational material belongs to no one as such — only the concrete form, the text itself, claims protection.
Categories of Works in Publishing
Article six lists the objects most frequently encountered in publishing practice: literary works — a book, brochure, article, computer program; dramatic and stage works; musical works with or without text; photographic works; maps, plans and illustrations; processed works — translations, adaptations, reviews, compilations; and composite works — collections, encyclopedias, anthologies, databases — which are the result of creative effort in the selection and arrangement of material.
Two rules deserve emphasis: processed and composite works are protected equally with the original work, and the protection of a computer program extends to every kind of program, including operating systems, in any language and form, including source text and object code. A translation and an electronic database are thus full-fledged objects of protection to the same extent as the original.