EthiopiaCopyright and Neighbouring Rights Protection Proclamation, Database Protection
Proclamation No. 410/2004, arts. 4(1)(b), 9(2)(c) (Database Protection)
In force since .
A database right rule binding private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Access restriction
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Do not reproduce a database whose selection or arrangement of contents is an original creation without the rightsholder's authorization; Ethiopia has no sui generis database right, so an unoriginal, purely factual database is not itself protected on that basis.
- Do not rely on the personal-reproduction exception to copy the whole or a substantial part of a database in digital form; that exception does not extend to a database.
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-09Information Security
- GAI-RISK-12Value Chain and Component Integration
- OWASP LLM Top 10
- LLM03:2026Excessive Agency
- OWASP Agentic Top 10
- ASI03Identity and Privilege Abuse
- MIT mitigations Draft
- FINOS AIGF
- AIR-PREV-018Agent Authority Least Privilege Framework
- AIR-PREV-023Agentic System Credential Protection Framework
- ETSI EN 304 223
- 5.1.2-6Access the AI system gets to other systems and data sources is minimal and risk assessed.
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
Identifiers refer to ETSI EN 304 223 V2.1.1 (2025-12), © ETSI 2025, all rights reserved. ETSI owns the standard; no ETSI text (titles or sentences) is reproduced here. The standard is free to download from ETSI.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Criminal exposure note
Unless a heavier penalty applies under the criminal law, intentionally violating a right protected under the Proclamation is punished with rigorous imprisonment of five to ten years, and violating a right through gross negligence with rigorous imprisonment of one to five years (art. 36 of the Proclamation as enacted, renumbered article 43 by Proclamation No. 872/2014). Proclamation No. 872/2014 adds a fine on top of the imprisonment: Birr 25,000 to 50,000 for an intentional violation and Birr 5,000 to 25,000 for a violation by gross negligence (art. 43(4) and (5)).
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Federal High Court
Settledness
- As of
- Open questions
- Is a database of records collected by crawling 'original by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents' under Article 4(1)(b) of Proclamation No. 410/2004, so that the collection itself is protected as a work?
- Does copying a database that is not 'original by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents' infringe any right under Proclamation No. 410/2004 through the works or data it contains?
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Articles 4(1)(b) and 9(2)(c) protect a collection or database as a work where its selection or arrangement is original, and keep its digital reproduction outside the personal-reproduction exception. They impose no duty to create, keep, produce or review a log or record, and they carry no territorial clause.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
The Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Protection Proclamation No. 410/2004 defines a database as an aggregate of information, articles, or numerical data or diagrams that is systematically constructed so that it can be searched for with the aid of a computer. A collection of works such as an encyclopedia, anthology, or database, whether in machine-readable or other form, is protected as a work only where the collection is original by reason of the selection or arrangement of its contents.
Ethiopia has no separate sui generis database right. The Proclamation's exception permitting a single-copy personal reproduction of a published work does not extend to reproducing the whole or a substantial part of a database in digital form. Reproducing or communicating a protected work without authorization, outside the Proclamation's exceptions, is punishable under its criminal-sanctions article.
Proclamation No. 872/2014 adds a fine of Birr 25,000 to 50,000 to the imprisonment for an intentional violation of a protected right. It adds a fine of Birr 5,000 to 25,000 to the imprisonment for a violation by gross negligence.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app crawls the web or trains models.
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