MicronesiaFSM Copyright Act, exclusive rights, fair use, and compilation protection
FSM Code Title 35, Ch. 1 (Copyrights), secs. 101-109
In force.
A copyright and text and data mining (TDM) rule binding public and private bodies.
- Obligation class
- TDM
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- A general fair use exception permits reproducing a copyrighted work, including for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research, weighed against the purpose, nature, amount used, and market effect of the use.
- No text-and-data-mining-specific exception or opt-out mechanism exists, so relying on fair use for automated collection or model training rests on the same multi-factor test as any other use.
- A compilation of preexisting data is protected as an original work of authorship only for the compiler's own original selection, coordination, or arrangement, not for the underlying data collected.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Private right of actionYes
Criminal exposure note
Willful infringement for commercial advantage or private gain is punishable by a fine of $10,000 or imprisonment of up to one year, or both (sec. 123(1)).
Penalty structure
Fixed criminal fine of $10,000 for willful infringement for commercial advantage or private gain under sec. 123(1), stated as the amount the section imposes and not as a ceiling; imprisonment of not more than one year may be imposed instead of or with the fine. Civil remedies under sec. 122 are an injunction, actual damages plus the infringer's profits, and court-imposed punitive damages, none of which is capped.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- Currency
- USD
- Fixed cap
- 10,000
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Copyright owners, who bring the civil action sec. 122 gives them; the chapter names no prosecutor for the offense in sec. 123, and until a separate Copyright Office is established the Office of the Attorney General exercises the administrative functions under the chapter (sec. 124(1)).
Settledness
- As of
- Open questions
- Is reproducing copyrighted works to train a machine-learning model a 'fair use' under section 107, when the section lists its purposes only as 'such as' criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research and gives four factors that 'shall include' the purpose and character of the use and its commercial nature?
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Sections 101 to 109 define compilations, give the exclusive rights, and set the fair-use and library exceptions. They impose no duty to create, keep, produce or review a log or record, and they carry no territorial clause. The library exception in section 108 asks only that a copyright notice appear on the copy, which is a notice on the work and not a record.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Section 106 of the FSM Copyright Act gives a copyright owner the exclusive right to reproduce, prepare derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display a copyrighted work, subject to section 107's fair-use exception, which reaches reproduction for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research, weighed against the purpose and commercial character of the use, the nature of the work, the amount used, and the effect on the work's market.
No text-and-data-mining-specific exception or opt-out mechanism exists in the chapter. Section 101 defines a compilation as an original work of authorship formed by selecting, coordinating, or arranging preexisting material or data, and section 103 confines a compilation's copyright to the compiler's own contribution, not the underlying material, so the Act confers no separate sui generis database right over data a scraper collects.
Willful infringement for commercial advantage or private gain is a criminal offense (section 123), and any infringement of the exclusive rights arms the copyright owner with a civil action for an injunction, damages, and court-imposed punitive damages (section 122); the chapter's own text does not state the calendar date on which it took effect.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app crawls the web or trains models.
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