ZambiaCopyright and Performance Rights Act, 1994, fair dealing for reporting current events
Copyright and Performance Rights Act, 1994 (Chapter 406), s. 21(1)(c)
In force since .
A snippet reproduction rule binding public and private bodies.
- Instrument type
- an act of a legislature
What it requires
- You may deal fairly with a work to report current events in a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical if you give a sufficient acknowledgement; the Act states no acknowledgement requirement where the report is made by broadcasting, inclusion in a cable program service, or use in an audiovisual work.
- You may deal fairly with a work for criticism or review, if you give a sufficient acknowledgement.
- Do not assume either exception covers a systematic aggregator's headlines and snippets: neither has a headline-length or short-extract cap, but that use, as against a newspaper's own current-events report, has not been tested in a reported Zambian decision.
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 21(1)(c) provides that fair dealing with a work for the purpose of reporting current events does not infringe copyright, whether done in a newspaper, magazine, or similar periodical provided there is a sufficient acknowledgement, or by broadcasting, inclusion in a cable program service, or use in an audiovisual work, for which the Act states no acknowledgement requirement.
Section 21(1)(b) separately exempts fair dealing for criticism or review, provided there is a sufficient acknowledgement. Neither exception is capped at a headline-length or short-extract threshold. Whether either reaches a systematic aggregator's reproduction of headlines and snippets, as opposed to a newspaper's own current-events report, has not been tested in a reported Zambian decision.
Zambia has no separate press-publisher neighbouring right, no compelled platform-to-publisher bargaining regime, no recognised hot-news or misappropriation doctrine distinct from ordinary copyright law, and no located case law on hyperlinking or framed display.
The Act's definition of a compilation confers copyright, not a sui generis database right, on a compilation that is a product of creativity by reason of the selection or arrangement of its contents, and the Act predates the concept of a machine-readable text-and-data-mining reservation, so no opt-out mechanism of that kind exists either.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app reuses other publishers' content.
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