QatarCopyright Protection Law, exceptions to copyright
Law No. 7 of 2002, arts. 18, 20-21
In force since .
A copyright and text and data mining (TDM) rule binding public and private bodies.
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- A reproduction or adaptation of a protected work for automated collection or model training must fit within the Law's narrow permitted-use list (personal use, non-profit teaching illustration, or adapting a lawfully-held copy of a computer program); Qatar has no text-and-data-mining exception, so bulk ingestion of copyrighted text for training does not fit these categories and requires the author's authorisation.
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
Criminal exposure note
Publishing a work without the author's certified written authorisation, including a reproduction that falls outside the permitted-use exceptions, carries imprisonment of six months to one year and a fine of QAR 30,000 to 100,000, or either (art. 48).
Penalty structure
General infringement penalty under art. 48 for publishing a work without the author's authorisation; applies where a reproduction or use falls outside the permitted-use exceptions of arts. 18, 20, and 21.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- Minimum
- 30,000
- Currency
- QAR
- Fixed cap
- 100,000
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Articles 18, 20 and 21 permit personal use, a single copy or adaptation of a computer program by its rightful owner, and teaching and library reproduction, each to the extent justified by its purpose. They state conditions of a permitted use and impose no duty to create, keep or produce a log or record. Outside the cited articles, article 22 requires a broadcaster to destroy a provisional recording within one year, and article 55 lets the Office's officers examine documents and records; the Law's article 5 on which works it applies to is not cited by this row.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Article 18 permits using a protected work without the author's authorisation for exclusively personal use (reproduction, translation, or quotation among other means), and for non-profit teaching illustration with source and author attribution. Article 20 lets the rightful owner of a copy of a computer program reproduce or adapt it, in a single copy, to the extent justified by the original purpose or for preservation, a right that lapses once possession of the program ceases to be lawful.
Article 21 permits reproduction of articles, short works, or extracts for teaching in non-commercial educational institutions, subject to conditions. Article 58 ties the Law's entry into force to the date of its publication in the Official Gazette, reported by WIPO Lex's bibliographic record for this version as . Exceeding these exceptions is an ordinary infringement, punishable under article 48.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app crawls the web or trains models.
Back to the example · Lint your app
Page updated .