United KingdomCopyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, literary works including computer programs, acts restricted by copyright, and adaptation
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, ss. 3, 16 and 21
In force since .
A copyright: the exclusive rights rule binding public and private bodies.
- Instrument type
- an act of a legislature
As of .
What it requires
- Get the copyright owner's licence before you copy a work, issue copies of it to the public, rent or lend it to the public, perform, show or play it in public, communicate it to the public, or make an adaptation of it (s. 16(1)).
- Do not do, or authorise another to do, any of those acts without the licence of the copyright owner: a person who does so infringes the copyright (s. 16(2)).
- Treat copying or otherwise dealing with a substantial part of a work, directly or indirectly, as dealing with the work, whether or not any intervening act itself infringes copyright (s. 16(3)).
- Treat a computer program, and preparatory design material for one, as a literary work in which copyright subsists once it is recorded, in writing or otherwise (s. 3(1) and (2)).
- Treat an arrangement or altered version of a computer program, or a translation of it, including a version converted into or out of a computer language or code or into a different one, as an adaptation, and making one as an act restricted by the copyright (s. 21(1), (3)(ab) and (4)).
- Check the acts permitted in relation to copyright works in Chapter III and the copyright licensing provisions in Chapter VII, to which the restrictions are subject (s. 16(4)).
What this law does
Section 3(1) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 defines a literary work as any work, other than a dramatic or musical work, which is written, spoken or sung. A literary work includes a computer program. A literary work also includes preparatory design material for a computer program. Copyright does not subsist in a literary work unless and until it is recorded, in writing or otherwise.
Section 16(1) gives the owner of the copyright in a work the exclusive right to do in the United Kingdom the acts of copying the work, issuing copies of it to the public, renting or lending it to the public, performing, showing or playing it in public, communicating it to the public, and making an adaptation of it or doing any of those acts in relation to an adaptation.
Under section 16(2), copyright in a work is infringed by a person who without the licence of the copyright owner does, or authorises another to do, any of the acts restricted by the copyright. Section 16(3) provides that references to the doing of an act restricted by the copyright are to the doing of it in relation to the work as a whole or any substantial part of it, either directly or indirectly, and that it is immaterial whether any intervening acts themselves infringe copyright.
Section 16(4) makes the section subject to the acts permitted in relation to copyright works in Chapter III of the Act and to the provisions on copyright licensing in Chapter VII. Section 21(1) makes the making of an adaptation of the work an act restricted by the copyright in a literary, dramatic or musical work, and an adaptation is made when it is recorded, in writing or otherwise.
Under section 21(2), doing any of the acts specified in sections 17 to 20, or making an adaptation, in relation to an adaptation of the work is also an act restricted by the copyright. Section 21(3)(ab) defines an adaptation, in relation to a computer program, as an arrangement or altered version of the program or a translation of it.
Section 21(4) provides that in relation to a computer program a translation includes a version of the program in which it is converted into or out of a computer language or code or into a different computer language or code. Section 21(5) provides that no inference is to be drawn from section 21 as to what does or does not amount to copying a work. Preparatory design material for a computer program was added to section 3(1) with effect from .
The definition of an adaptation of a computer program in section 21(3)(ab) was inserted with effect from . Part I of the Act, which includes sections 3, 16 and 21, came into force on .
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app reuses other publishers' content, distributes a software product, trains models, generates content with AI or crawls the web.