MyanmarCopyright Law, compilation protection with no sui generis database right
Copyright Law (Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Law No. 15/2019), s. 15, s. 24
A database right rule binding private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Prohibition
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Myanmar protects only the selection or arrangement of a compilation of data as an intellectual creation; the contents of the collection are not themselves protected and carry no sui generis database right.
- Reproducing the whole or a substantial part of a database in digital form requires the right holder's authorization; it is not covered by the Law's personal-use exception.
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.
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
Reproducing, communicating to the public, or distributing a protected compilation for a commercial purpose and without the right holder's consent is punishable, on conviction, with imprisonment not exceeding 3 years or a fine not less than 1,000,000 kyats, or both (s. 82).
Penalty structure
Highest stated ceiling: section 83 punishes a repeat conviction with imprisonment of three to ten years and a fine not exceeding 10 million kyats. A first conviction under section 82 carries imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine of not less than one million kyats, or both, with no stated ceiling on the fine.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- Currency
- MMK
- Fixed cap
- 10,000,000
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
The Intellectual Property Court hears the right holder's criminal or civil case (sections 73 and 76), and the Director General of the Customs Department suspends the release of suspected infringing imports on a right holder's application (sections 64 to 67).
Settledness
- As of
- Open questions
- Is the extraction of a Myanmar compiler's data a reproduction under section 15 where the compiler's selection or arrangement is not copied?
- What counts as "a substantial part of a database in digital form" under section 24?
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Section 15 protects compilations of data, in machine readable or other form, as derivative works where the selection or arrangement is an intellectual creation, and does not extend to the contents; section 24 bars reproduction of the whole or a substantial part of a database in digital form under the personal-use exception. There is no sui generis database right and no duty to keep a log or record. Section 12 is the Law's protection-scope clause and is not a territorial test on these provisions, so the hook is empty.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Section 15 protects, as a derivative work, a compilation of data whether in machine-readable or other form, but only where the collection constitutes an intellectual creation by reason of the selection or arrangement of its content, and it expressly states that the contents of the collection are not themselves protected.
Myanmar therefore confers no sui generis database right of the kind that protects the investment in obtaining, verifying or presenting a database's contents regardless of originality; a scraper that extracts the contents of a Myanmar-compiled database without reproducing the compiler's own selection or arrangement faces no compilation-copyright claim over the data taken.
Reproduction of the whole or a substantial part of a database in digital form is also carved out of the Law's own personal-use exception at section 24, so even a non-commercial reproduction of that kind needs the right holder's authorization once it goes beyond copying the protected selection or arrangement. No official copy of the notification bringing the Law into force has been located.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app crawls the web or trains models.
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