BelarusLaw on Copyright and Related Rights, Free Use of Press Articles and Quotation
Law No. 262-Z of , arts. 32 and 33, on Copyright and Related Rights (as amended)
In force since .
A snippet reproduction rule binding public and private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Attribution
What it requires
- You may reproduce excerpts of a lawfully published work, in the original or in translation, as a quotation for research, educational, polemical, critical or informational purposes, to the extent the purpose justifies.
- You may reproduce in a print outlet, or broadcast or communicate to the public, a lawfully published newspaper or magazine article on current economic, political, social or religious affairs, or a like work lawfully broadcast or placed online for public information, unless the author or rightsholder has specially prohibited it.
- You may reproduce publicly delivered political speeches, addresses and reports, and works seen or heard during a current event as part of a review of that event, to the extent justified by an informational purpose.
- Do not assume any of these reaches a systematic online news aggregator: no reported Belarusian decision applies them to one rather than to an individual quoting or reprinting a published work.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
In the frameworks
- NIST AI RMF
- MAP 4.1Approaches for mapping AI technology and legal risks of its components – including the use of third-party data or software – are in place, followed, and documented, as are risks of infringement of a third party’s intellectual property or other rights.
- NIST AI 600-1
- GAI-RISK-10Intellectual Property
- MIT mitigations Draft
- 3.2Data Governance
- FINOS AIGF
- AIR-PREV-007Legal and Contractual Frameworks for AI Systems
- AIR-DET-013Providing Citations and Source Traceability for AI-Generated Information
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Private right of actionYes
Criminal exposure note
Criminal Code art. 201(2): illegal distribution or other illegal use of a copyrighted work, related right, or industrial property object, exceeding what the free-use provisions above permit, committed within a year after an administrative penalty for the same violation or yielding income in a large amount (five hundred or more base units), is punishable by community service, a fine, restriction of freedom for up to three years, or deprivation of freedom for up to two years; art. 201(3) raises this to a fine, arrest, restriction of freedom for up to five years, or deprivation of freedom for the same term where the act is repeated, committed by a group, committed by an official using their position, or causes damage in a large amount.
Statutory damages
Law No. 262-Z art. 56(2) lets a rightsholder elect, instead of proving actual damages, court-determined compensation of one to fifty thousand base units per infringement, including a use exceeding the free-use provisions above, based on the nature of the violation; this is a single court-determined range for the infringement rather than a per-victim amount. The floor of that range, at the base unit's current value, is BYN 45 (Council of Ministers Resolution No. 651 of , in effect from , already cited on this jurisdiction's privacy document); the ceiling is fifty thousand base units, BYN 2,250,000 at that rate.
- As of
- Currency
- BYN
- Per person minimum
- 45
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Rightholders and the collective management organizations acting for them, who bring claims in the courts (Law No. 262-Z, art. 56(1) and (4)); art. 55(3) sends a breach to the liability set by other legislative acts.
Settledness
- As of
- Open questions
- Does a robots.txt directive or a terms-of-use clause count as a special prohibition ("специально запрещены") by the author or other rightholder under Article 33(1)?
- Does "сообщены для всеобщего сведения иным образом" (communicated to the public in another way) in Article 33(1) extend the permission to an online news aggregator that is not itself a print or broadcast media outlet?
What this law does
Article 32(2) permits reproducing excerpts of a lawfully published work, in the original or in translation, as quotation for research, educational, polemical, critical, or informational purposes, to the extent the purpose justifies.
Article 33(1) separately permits reproducing, in a print outlet, broadcasting, or communicating to the public by another means, a lawfully published newspaper or magazine article on current economic, political, social, or religious affairs, or a work of the same character lawfully broadcast or lawfully placed for public information on the global computer network Internet, unless the author or other rightsholder has specially prohibited such use.
Article 33(2) allows the same for publicly delivered political speeches, addresses, and reports, to the extent justified by an informational purpose, and article 33(3) allows reproducing works seen or heard during a current event, as part of a review of that event, to the same extent.
None of these provisions carries a headline-length or short-extract cap distinct from its own purpose-justified or reservation test, and no reported Belarusian decision applies any of them to a systematic online news aggregator rather than an individual quoting or reprinting a published work.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app reuses other publishers' content.
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