SingaporeCopyright Act, Fair Use Exception
Copyright Act 2021, ss. 190-191 (Fair Use)
In force since .
A snippet reproduction rule binding public and private bodies.
What it requires
- You may make fair use of a work without permission (ss. 190-191); the Act has no separate quotation or news-summary exception.
- Judge fairness by the purpose and character of the use (including whether it is commercial or non-profit and educational), the nature of the work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used relative to the whole, and the effect of the use on the potential market for, or value of, the work (s. 191).
- Do not assume that reproducing a headline or a short extract from another outlet's reporting is fair use: it turns on that general four-factor test, with no headline-length or short-extract cap, and no reported Singapore decision has applied it to a systematic news aggregator.
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
What this law does
Section 190 makes it a permitted use of a work, or of a protected performance or a recording of one, to make fair use of it. Section 191 lists the relevant matters for deciding fairness. These include the purpose and character of the use, including whether it is commercial or non-profit and educational, and the nature of the work. They also include the amount and substantiality of the portion used relative to the whole.
A further matter is the effect of the use on the potential market for, or value of, the work. The Act carries no separate quotation or news-summary exception, no headline-length or short-extract cap, and no press-publisher neighbouring right of the kind the European Union's Digital Single Market Directive Article 15 creates.
Whether reproducing a headline or a short extract from another outlet's reporting is a fair use turns on this general four-factor test, and no reported Singapore decision has applied it to a systematic news aggregator. Sections 190 and 191 fall outside the two carve-outs in the Act's own commencement clause, so they came into force with the rest of the Act on .
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app reuses other publishers' content.
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