• For the purposes of this Law, the following words and phrases - wherever they appear herein - shall have the meanings set forth opposite them, unless the context requires otherwise:

  • Law: Copyright Law.
  • Regulation: The Implementing Regulation of the Law.
  • Authority: Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property.
  • Council: Board of Directors of the Authority.
  • President: Chief Executive Officer of the Authority.
  • Work: Any innovative work, whether literary, artistic, or scientific, regardless of its type, method of expression, or purpose.
  • Innovation: The creation of a work that contains an element of originality and is characterized by a distinctive nature.
  • Author: The person who creates the work.
  • Joint Work: A work contributed to by more than one natural or corporate person, whether the contribution of each can be separated or not, and which does not fall under collective works.
  • Collective Work: A work in which more than one author participates under the direction of a natural or corporate person who manages it, publishes it under their name and account, and integrates the authors' work to achieve the general purpose intended by that person, without specifying any special right for any of the authors over the work.
  • Audiovisual Work: Any work consisting of a series of related images, often accompanied by sounds, and presented through appropriate media.
  • Derivative Work: Any work derived from a prior existing work.
  • Orphan Work: Any work, performance, sound recording, or broadcast program protected under the provisions of the Law whose author, rights holder, or their heirs are unknown or cannot be located.
  • Fixation: Any embodiment of sounds, images and sounds, or representations thereof, by which they can be perceived, reproduced, or transmitted by any means.
  • Cultural Heritage: Works created within the territory of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, passed down from generation to generation, and forming part of the national or traditional Saudi artistic heritage.
  • Publication: Making copies of a fixed work, performance, or sound recording available to the public in a manner that meets their reasonable needs, taking into account the nature of the work, fixed performance, or sound recording.
  • Publisher: Any natural or corporate person who publishes a work, sound recording, broadcast program, or any performance to the public by any means.
  • Rights Holders: The author, performing artists, producers of sound recordings, broadcasting organizations, or those to whom rights have been wholly or partially transferred under the Law.
  • Broadcasting: The transmission of a signal carrying a program prepared for broadcasting via radio, television, or broadcasting devices, by wired, wireless, or any transmission means, to be received by the public, including satellite broadcasting. The transmission of encrypted signals is considered broadcasting if the public is provided with a decoding means by or with the consent of the broadcasting organizations. Transmission via computer networks is not considered broadcasting.
  • Reproduction: The extraction of one or more copies of a work, sound recording, broadcast program, or any performance in any form or manner, leading to the preservation of such copy or copies by any means or media.
  • Technical Protection Measures: Any effective technology aimed at preventing or limiting unauthorized acts by rights holders.
  • Rights Management Information: Information identifying the work and its author, or the performer and their performance, or the producer of the sound recording and the sound recording, the owner of any right therein, or any information relating to the terms of use thereof, or any numbers or codes representing such information whenever any element of such information is associated with a copy of the work, fixed performance, or sound recording, or appears during the transmission of the work, fixed performance, or sound recording to the public.
  • Related Rights: The rights enjoyed by performing artists, producers of sound recordings, and broadcasting organizations in accordance with the Law.
  • Performing Artists: Actors, singers, narrators, reciters, instrumentalists, musicians, dancers, and others who perform by any means, including performances of national heritage works or works that have entered the public domain.
  • Broadcasting Organization: A corporate person responsible for radio, television, or audiovisual broadcasting.
  • Sound Recording: The fixation of sounds constituting a performance or other sounds, or the fixation of representations of sounds in a form other than the fixation included in another audiovisual work.
  • Public Performance: Communicating the work to the public by any means in a place where persons other than family members and friends may be present.
  • Distribution: Making the tangible work or copies thereof available to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership methods with the permission of the rights holder.
  • Lease: Making the tangible work or copies thereof available to the public for use for a specified period of time for economic or commercial benefit, whether directly or indirectly.
  • Computer Programs: A set of instructions expressed in words, symbols, or any other form that a computer can read when embedded in media, or that causes it to perform or execute a task or produce a result.
  • Internet Content Provider: Any entity that hosts Internet content and provides it to the end user via the Internet.
  • Authorized Entity: An establishment that provides education, training, adaptive reading, or access to information services for the benefit of persons with disabilities, is non-profit, and includes governmental bodies and non-profit institutions that provide the same services to persons with disabilities within their core activities or institutional obligations.
  • Person Benefiting from Disability: A person with a disability who is blind or visually impaired to an extent that cannot be improved to have vision equivalent to that of a person without disability, or unable to read due to a physical disability, regardless of any other disability condition.
  • Accessible Copy in an Easy Format: A copy of a work in an alternative style or form that enables a person benefiting from disability to access the original work smoothly and easily, without prejudice to the moral rights of the original work.
  • Compulsory License: Permission granted to others to exploit the work without the consent of the rights holders, in accordance with the provisions stipulated in the Law.
  • Public Domain: Works that anyone can use or exploit without permission or obligation to pay compensation to the rights holders.

• The provisions of the law apply to the following:

  • 1- Works of Saudi authors, or residents in the Kingdom.

  • 2- Works that were published for the first time inside the Kingdom, or that were first published in another country and then published in the Kingdom within thirty (30) days from the date of the first publication, regardless of the nationality or residence of the author.

  • 3- Audiovisual works for which the Kingdom is the principal place of the producer or their residence.

  • 4- Architectural works constructed in the Kingdom, and other artistic works integrated into a building or any other facility located in the Kingdom..

  • 5- Performing artists for their performances, producers of sound recordings for their sound recordings, and broadcasting organizations for their broadcasts, as determined by the regulation..

  • 6- Works, performances, sound recordings, and broadcasting programs protected under international agreements or treaties to which the Kingdom is a party..

• The law protects works regardless of their type, the manner of expression, or the purpose of their creation, and includes - without limitation - the following:

  • 1- Written materials; such as books, booklets, and the like.
  • 2- Works delivered orally; such as lectures, speeches, poems, chants, and similar.
  • 3- Theatrical compositions, plays, performances, and the like of shows performed by movement, voice, or both.
  • 4- Drawing works, plastic arts, decorative arts, artistic weaving, and the like.
  • 5- Musical works and audiovisual works.
  • 6- Applied arts works.
  • 7- Photographic works or their equivalents.
  • 8- Illustrations, geographic maps, designs, plans, diagrams, and plastic works related to geography, topography, and sciences.
  • 9- Three-dimensional works related to geography, topography, or sciences.
  • 10- Architectural works and engineering plans.
  • 11- Computer programs and their applications.
  • 12- Collections of works and cultural heritage, such as encyclopedias, anthologies, and databases, which are considered innovative in terms of the selection or arrangement of their contents. This protection does not extend to the data or materials themselves, nor does it affect the rights of authors concerning all data and materials that form part of the collection of works and cultural heritage, whether in machine-readable form or otherwise.
  • 13- Derivative works, without prejudice to the protection granted to the works from which they are derived.

• The protection stipulated under the law does not include the following:

  • 1- Ideas, procedures, methods of work, concepts of mathematical sciences, principles, and abstract facts.
  • 2- Systems, regulations, judicial rulings and orders, decisions and orders issued by administrative and quasi-judicial committees, administrative decisions, international agreements, all official documents, and their official translations, taking into account the provisions related to the circulation of these documents.
  • 3- What is published by newspapers, magazines, international bulletins, and broadcasting authorities; including daily news or incidents of a news nature.

• Protection applies to all the foregoing if their collection is characterized by innovation in arrangement, presentation, or classification without protecting the content presented.

Neighboring rights enjoy the same protection granted to rights under the law, to the extent that is consistent with their nature. The regulation shall specify the provisions related thereto..

Cultural heritage is the property of the state, and the competent authority is responsible for its identification, care, support, and protection in accordance with the public interests of the state.

• 1- The author enjoys the following moral rights:

  • A- Publishing his work for the first time.

  • B- Attributing his work to him, publishing it under a pseudonym, or anonymously.

  • C- Objecting to the publication of his work under another's name, or to placing another's name on a work not authored by him.

  • D- Objecting to any modification of his work if it involves distortion or falsification of the work, or any harm to it that would damage his reputation.

• 2- The moral rights mentioned in paragraph (1) of this article are perpetual rights not subject to prescription, non-transferable, non-waivable, and do not lapse by granting the right to exploit the work in any form of exploitation. The management of these rights shall be transferred to his legal heirs after him..

• 3- Performing artists enjoy moral rights as determined by the regulation.

The author may request the competent court to prohibit the publication of his work or withdraw it from circulation, based on serious reasons justifying such action, despite having disposed of the financial exploitation right. If his request is granted, the party who acquired the financial exploitation right may submit a claim for compensation to be determined by the competent court..

• 1- The author enjoys an exclusive right to perform or authorize all or some of the following actions according to the nature of the work:

  • A- Copying the work by any method or form.

  • B- Translating the work into other languages, modifying it, converting it, or adapting it into another form.

  • C- Distributing the work, and this right is exhausted upon the first distribution.

  • D- Public performance of the work in any form.

  • E- Leasing the work, for commercial purposes for the following works:

    • 1- Sound recordings.

    • 2- Audiovisual works. This right does not apply if the lease does not affect or harm its normal exploitation.

    • 3- Computer programs. This right does not apply if the program itself is not the primary subject of the lease.

  • F- Authorizing the transmission of the work to the public by any means via wired or wireless broadcasting, including making the work available to the public in a way that allows them to access it at any time and place.

  • G- Licensing the financial exploitation of the work in general.

• 2- Related rights holders enjoy financial rights as clarified by the regulation.