The Arab countries:

Driven by the desire to effectively and uniformly protect the rights of authors over literary, artistic, and scientific works, and in response to Article 21 of the Arab Cultural Unity Charter issued in 1964, which called upon Arab countries to establish legislation for the protection of literary, artistic, and scientific property within the limits of their sovereignty.

Convinced of the Arab interest in establishing a unified Arab law for the protection of authors' rights that suits the Arab countries and complements the existing international agreements, such as the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and the Universal Copyright Convention amended on July 24, 1971.

Believing that this unified Arab law for the protection of authors' rights will encourage Arab authors to create and innovate and promote the development of literature, arts, and sciences. They have agreed on the following:

(A) Authors of innovative works in literature, arts, and sciences are protected regardless of the value of these works, their type, the purpose of their creation, or the method of expression used in them.

(B) This protection specifically includes the following:

• 1- Books, booklets, and other written materials.

• 2- Works that are delivered orally, such as lectures, speeches, and religious sermons.

• 3- Dramatic works and musical plays.

• 4- Musical works whether notated or not, whether accompanied by lyrics or not.

• 5- Choreographic works and pantomime.

• 6- Cinematographic works and audio-visual broadcasts.

• 7- Works of drawing and painting with lines and colors, architecture, sculpture, decorative arts, and engraving.

• 8- Works of photography.

• 9- Works of applied arts whether craft-based or industrial.

• 10- Illustrative images, geographical maps, designs, diagrams, and three-dimensional works related to geography, topography, architecture, and sciences.

(C) It is required that the protected works have material publicity.

(A) Also enjoys protection and is considered an author for the purposes of this Agreement:

• 1- Those who, with the permission of the original author, translate the work into another language, as well as those who summarize, adapt, modify, explain, or otherwise present the work in a new form.

• 2- Authors of encyclopedias and anthologies that, in terms of the selection of their material and its arrangement, constitute creative intellectual works.

(B) The protection established in the previous paragraph does not affect the protection enjoyed by the authors of original works.

The protection does not include the following classifications:

• A- Laws, judicial rulings, and decisions of administrative bodies, as well as official translations of these texts.

• B- News published, broadcasted, or publicly communicated.

(A) The author of the work enjoys copyright, and the status of the author is established for anyone who published, broadcasted, or identified the work in their name, unless proven otherwise, and the enjoyment and exercise of these rights are not subject to any formal procedure.

(B) If the work was created for the account of a natural or legal person, whether private or public, the copyright is established for the author, and national legislation may stipulate that the legal person is the original rights holder unless the agreement states otherwise in writing.

(C) Copyright for cinematographic works is originally established for those who contributed to its creation, in proportion to each person's contribution, such as the director, the screenwriter, and the composer of the musical score, whether accompanied by lyrics or not.

(A) For the purposes of this Agreement, folklore refers to the literary, artistic, or scientific works created by the popular groups in the member states as an expression of their cultural identity, which are passed down from generation to generation and constitute one of the essential elements of their heritage.

(B) National folklore is considered the property of each of the member states in which it was created within their sovereignty.

(C) The member states shall work to protect national folklore by all legal means and methods and shall exercise the authority of the competent national authority regarding folklore works in the face of distortion, alteration, or commercial exploitation.

(A) The author alone has the right to attribute the work to himself and to have his name mentioned on all copies produced whenever this work is presented to the public, unless the work is mentioned incidentally in the context of a radio or television presentation of current events.

(B) The author or his private or public heirs have the right to object or to prevent any deletion, alteration, addition, or any other modification to his work without his permission.

(C) The modification in the translation of the work is exempt from the provisions of the previous paragraph unless this translation affects the reputation, honor, or artistic fame of the author or disturbs the content of the work… In all cases, it must be noted what modifications the translation has made to the original work.

(D) The moral rights mentioned in paragraphs (A-B) are not subject to action or prescription.

The author or their representative has the following direct rights:

• A- Reproducing the work in all physical forms, including photographic or cinematic reproduction or recording.

• B- Translating the work, adapting it, or distributing it musically or making any other modifications to it.

• C- Communicating the work to the public through performance, representation, broadcasting, television, or any other means.