An Act to make provisions with respect to Copyrights and Neighbouring Rights and for purposes connected therewith.

Short title
1. This Act may be cited as the Copyright Act, 1989.

Interpretation
2. In this Act, except where the context otherwise requires-

"adaptation" means 

(a) in relation to a literary work in a non-dramatic form, a version of the work in a dramatic-form in any language whatsoever; 

(b) in relation to a literary work in a dramatic form, a version of the work in a non-dramatic form in any language whatsoever; 

(c) in relation to a literary work (whether in a non-dramatic form or in a dramatic form)

(i) a translation of the work; or

(ii) a version of the work in which a story or action is conveyed solely or principally by means of pictures; and

(d) in relation to a musical work, an arrangement or transcription of the work;

"audio-visual production" means the aggregate of a series of related visual images, together with accompanying sounds, if any, which is capable of being shown by means of a mechanical, electronic or other device and irrespective of the nature of the material support on which the visual images and sounds, if any, are carried, but does not include a broadcast; and "audiovisual work" has the same meaning;

"author" means: 

(a) in relation to a literary work, the author of the work; 

(b) in relation to a musical work, the composer thereof; 

(c) in relation to an artistic work other than a photograph, the artist thereof; 

(d) in relation to a photograph, the person taking the photograph; or 

(e) generally, the creator or maker of a work; 

"a broadcast" means the aggregate of sounds, or of sounds and visual images, embodied in a programme as transmitted by radio or television broadcasting;

"building" includes a structure of any kind;

"communication by cable" in relation to a protected work, production or performance, means the transmission to the public over wires, or other paths provided by a material substance, of the work, production or performance;

"computer software" means a set of instructions whether expressed in words or in schematic or other form, which is capable, when incorporated in a machine-readable medium, of causing an electronic or other device having information-processing capabilities to indicate, perform or achieve a particular function, task or result;

"distribution" means the distribution to the public, for commercial purposes, of copies of a work or production by way of rental, lease, hire, loan or similar means;

"drawing" includes a diagram, map, chart, or plan;

"engraving" includes an etching, lithograph, product of photogravure, woodcut, print or similar work, not being a photograph;

"fixation" means the embodiment of sounds, images or both in a material form sufficiently permanent or stable to enable the sounds, images or both, as the circumstances require, to be perceived, reproduced or otherwise communicated during a period of more than a transitory duration;

"folklore" means all literary and artistic works created in St. Vincent and the Grenadines by various communities, passed on from generation to generation and constituting one of the basic elements of the traditional cultural heritage;

"manuscript" in relation to a work, means the original document embodying the work whether written by hand or not;

"Minister" means the Minister responsible for Justice;

"multimedia production" includes an audio-visual production, dance, song, theatrical production, cinematic projection, collages, projections of photographs and sketches, live or recorded music, and other sounds, or any combination of the foregoing;

"neighbouring rights" means rights subsisting under Part II of this Act;

"photograph" includes photolithograph and any work produced by a process analogous to photography but does not include any part of an audio-visual work; and "photographic work" has a corresponding meaning;

"performance" means the communication or delivery of a work by whatsoever means to the public or any section thereof;

"performer" means any actor, singer, musician, dancer or other individual who acts, sings, depicts, delivers, declaims, plays in or otherwise performs a literary, musical or artistic work, or an identifiable group or variety performing together;

"publication" means work published in any manner whatsoever for supply to the public or any section thereof;

"recording" means a fixation of any sounds or images or both by means of any disc, tape, perforated roll or other device or other means from or by which the sounds, images or both are capable of being reproduced;

"sound recording" means the aggregate of the sounds embodied in, and capable of being reproduced by means of, a record of any description, other than a sound track associated with an audio-visual production;

"transfer" refers to transfer within the meaning of sub-section 3 of section 17;

"writing" includes any form of notation, whether by hand or by printing, typewriting or any other process.

Application of Act
3. This Act applies- 

(a) to a literary, artistic or scientific work first published, performed or broadcast in St. Vincent and the Grenadines; 

(b) to a literary, artistic or scientific work of which a citizen of St. Vincent and the Grenadines or an individual who is a permanent resident of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, is the author, whether or not the work is published, performed or broadcast; 

(c) to a literary, artistic or scientific work of a foreign author first published in a State that has acceded to the Berne Convention; 

(d) to a literary, artistic or scientific work, whether or not it has been published, performed or broadcast, the author of which: 

(i) is not a citizen or permanent resident of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, but

(ii) is a national or resident of a State whose laws, pursuant to treaty or otherwise, make provisions similar to this Act in respect of authors who are citizens or permanent residents of St. Vincent and the Grenadines; and

(e) to such other matters as are provided for by this Act. 

Literary, artistic and scientific works
4. Literary, artistic and scientific works include-

(a) books, pamphlets, and other writings; 

(b) lectures, addresses, sermons and works of alike nature; 

(c) dramatic and dramatico-musical works; 

(d) musical works, whether or not they are in written form and whether or not they include accompanying works; 

(e) choreographic works and pantomimes; 

(f) cinematographic and other audio-visual works; 

(g) works of drawing, painting, architecture, sculpture, engraving, lithography and tapestry, irrespective of their artistic quality; 

(h) photographic works, including works expressed by processes analogous to photography; 

(i) works of applied art, whether handicraft or produced on an industrial scale; 

(j) illustrations, maps, plans, sketches and threedimensional works relative to geography, topography, architecture or science; 

(k) written tables or compilations; and 

(1) computer software. 

Protected work
5. (1) Authors of original literary, artistic and scientific works shall be entitled to protection of their works under this Part.

(2) Works shall be protected irrespective of their quality and the purpose for which they were created.

(3) A work shall be lawfully made public if it is published, performed or broadcast with the consent of the author of the work or any other person lawfully entitled to grant such consent, or if it is otherwise published, performed or broadcast in accordance with the provisions of this Act.

Permitted use of work
6. (1) Notwithstanding the provisions of section 5, protection shall not be afforded to any author or other person for the time being entitled thereto and the consent of such author or other person shall not be required in the following instances

(a) for the publication, reproduction, translation or arrangement of any law, statutory instrument or decision of the courts and administrative bodies, as well as to official translations thereof; 

(b) reports made by any body established in St. Vincent and the Grenadines to make a public inquiry into any matter and published by the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines; 

(c) translations made at public expense of any works referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b); 

(d) where the reproduction, or the translation, adaption, arrangement or other transformation of the work is for the user's personal use only, proved that the work has already been lawfully made public; 

(e) where quotations are taken from one work or article and produced as part of another work, provided that the work from which the quotations were taken has been lawfully made public and mention is made of this source and the author thereof; 

(f) where the work is used for teaching by way of illustrations in publications, broadcasts or recordings or communicated for such purpose by way of a broadcast to schools, universities or for public education, provided that the work has been lawfully made public and the source of the work used and author thereof are mentioned in the relevant publication, broadcast or recording; 

(g) news of the day published, broadcast or publicly communicated by any other means including photographic and audio-visual works; 

(h) publications appearing in periodicals, magazines or journals on economic, political, sociological or religious topics or any broadcast of the same, unless the article or broadcast, when first published or made, was accompanied by an express condition prohibiting its use without consent; 

(i) for the reproduction of works of art or of architecture in an audio-visual work for cinema or television or in a broadcast by television and the communication to the public of any of those works of art or architecture so produced, if those works- 

(i) are permanently located in a place where they can be viewed by the public, or

(ii) are included in an audio-visual work for cinema or television by way only of background or are incidental to the essential matters represented therein;

(j) for the purpose of the reproduction in the news media or the communication to the public of

(i) any political speech delivered in public;

(ii) any speech delivered in public during legal proceedings, or

(iii) any lecture, address, sermon or other works of a similar nature delivered in public, if the use by reproduction or communication to the public is exclusively for the purpose of reporting fresh events or new information, provided also that such production does not unreasonably affect the author's rights in the work.

(2) The Crown is the trustee for the public of the works described in paragraphs (a) to (c) of subsection (1).

(3) The Crown may, in respect of any of the works coming under paragraphs (a) to (c) of subsection (1), apply to the High Court for an injuction to restrain a person from any distortion, mutilation or other modification of or derogatory act committed in relation to any of those works, where such distortion, mutilation or other modification or derogatory act is likely to be a dishonest artifice amounting to a fraud on the public, and to restrain any publication, sale or distribution of the same.

News reports: saving
7. An author's rights in a work are not infringed by the accidental or incidental inclusion of the work in the reporting by a news broadcast of fresh events, new information or commentaries on the same.

Ephemeral recording
8. (1) When a work is lawfully broadcast by a broadcaster, the broadcaster may, by means of his own facility, make for the purpose of his own broadcast, a recording of the broadcast and produce one or more copies of the recording for his own use.

(2) Any recording made in accordance with subsection (1) may be deposited with the official archives of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and where so deposited shall not affect the authors' rights in the work that was so broadcast.

Licence: non-contractual translation of work
First Schedule
9. A person may, without the consent of the author of a work, translate the work into the English language and publish the work of translation in St. Vincent and the Grenadines under a licence granted by the Minister in accordance with the rules for that purpose in the First Schedule.

Licence: non-contractual recording of work
Second Schedule
10. A person may, without the consent of the author of a work, reproduce the work and publish in St. Vincent and the Grenadines a particular edition of the work by reproduction under a licence granted by the Minister in accordance with the rules set out in the Second Schedule for that purpose.

Permissible recordings
11. (1) Subject to subsection (2), where, in respect of a musical work, a sound recording has been made of the performance of the work with the consent of the author of the music and of the accompanying words, if any, and the sound recording has been made in St. Vincent and the Grenadines or a copy of it has been imported into St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a person may, without the consent of the author of either the music or of any accompanying words, make a new recording of a performance of the same musical work.

(2) Where, pursuant to subsection (1), a sound recording is made in St. Vincent and the Grenadines of the performance of a musical work the recorder thereof shall pay to the author of the music and of the accompanying words, if any, such remuneration as the Minister may, by order, prescribe.

(3) The making of a recording pursuant to this section does not otherwise affect the author's rights in the musical work or in the accompanying words, if any.

Ownership of copyrights
12. (1) The rights protected under section 5 of this Act are owned in the first instance by the author who created the work, and the authors of a work of joint authorship are co-owners of the said rights.

(2) Until proved otherwise, the author of a work is the person under whose name the work is disclosed.

(3) Subject to any enactment relating to contracts of employment and to the terms of any employment contract, when a work is created by an author:

(a) in the course of his employment for the Crown, a body corporate or other individual; or 

(b) under a contract for services with, or as a work commissioned by, the Crown, a body corporate or other individual, 

then, in respect of that work the author's rights under sections 13 and 14 vest in the Crown, body corporate or other person who employed the author or commissioned the work.

Economic rights
13. The author of a protected work has the exclusive right, subject to sections 6 to 11, in relation to the whole work or any part thereof to do or to authorise another person to do any of the following acts, namely

(a) to reproduce the work; 

(b) to translate, adapt, arrange or otherwise transform the work; and 

(c) to communicate the work to the public by publication, performance, broadcast (including transmission by cable) or by any other means. 

Moral rights
14. The author of a protected work has, in respect of his work, the exclusive right

(a) to claim authorship of his work; 

(b) to demand that his authorship be indicated in connection with any of the acts mentioned in section 13, except where the work is incidentally or accidentally included in the reporting of current events by means of broadcasting or television; and 

(c) to object to and to have relief in connection with, any distortion, mutilation or other modification of, or any derogatory act committed in relation to, his work, where the distortion, mutilation, modification or derogatory act has or is likely to have an adverse effect on his character or reputation. 

Compiling of work
15. (1) A person who compiles as a work, a collection of literary, artistic or scientific works that, because of the selection and arrangement of its contents, constitutes an intellectual creation such as (by way of example but without limiting the generality of this paragraph) encyclopaedias and anthologies, if his work is original, has, in relation to his work, the rights of an author under sections 13 and 14.

(2) Subsection (1) does not affect any author's rights that exist under this Act in respect of any work used in the making or compiling of a work described in that subsection.

Folklore
16. (1) In the case of Vincentian folklore, the author's rights under this Act vest in the Crown to the same extent as if the Crown had been the original creator of the folklore.

(2) The rights of the Crown in respect of folklore are enforceable at the instance of the Attorney General.

(3) Works of Vincentian folklore shall be protected without limitation in time.

Transfer of rights
17. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the rights vested in an author by this Act in respect of a work are transferable by the author.

(2) The moral rights vested in an author under section 14 are not transferable otherwise than by succession.

(3) For the purposes of this Act, "transfer" extends to every mode, whether direct or indirect, voluntary or involuntary, absolute or conditional, of disposing of or parting with any right vested under this Act or of any interest in any such right, including the retention of the title to the right or interest as security for any obligation.

Transfer formalities
18. (1) To be valid, the transfer of the rights vested in an author by section 13 in respect of a work must be in writing and signed by the person who is transferring the rights or any part of the rights in respect of the work; but this subsection does not prevent a transfer of those rights by operation of law.

(2) The transfer of the ownership in an original work, or in one or more copies of a work, does not transfer to the new owner of the original or copy any of the author's rights in the work.

Duration: economic rights
19. (1) Unless otherwise expressly provided in this Act, the author's rights vested under section 13 in respect of a work, exist for the life of the author and for the fifty calendar years immediately following the year of his death.

(2) When the author's rights under section 13 in a work are vested jointly in more than one author, the rights exist for the life of the last surviving author and for the fifty calendar years immediately following the year of his death.

(3) When, under section 12 the author s rights in a work under sections 13 and 14 are vested in the Crown, a body corporate or an individual, the rights exist for the life of the individual who made or created the work and for the fifty calendar years immediately following his death; or, if the work was made or created by two or more individuals, the rights exist for the life of the last survivor of those individuals and for the fifty calendar years immediately following his death.

Duration: moral rights
20. The author's rights vested under section 14 exist for the same period as that prescribed by sections 19, 2 1, 22, or 23 for the rights vested in the author under section 13, except that the rights of an author under section 14 are enforceable by the author or his successors in title whether or not the rights vested in the author by section 13 are still vested in the author or his successors.

Duration: anonymous authors
21. Where a work is published anonymously or under a pseudonym, the author's rights in the work exist for the fifty calendar years immediately following the year in which the work was first published; but, if during that period, the identity of the author of the work is revealed or his identity is no longer in doubt, the rights exist for such period specified under section 19, as the circumstances require.

Duration: audio-visual works
22. When a work is an audio-visual work, the author's rights in the work exist for the fifty calendar years immediately following the year in which the work was first made available to the public; but if the work is not made available to the public within the first fifteen calendar years after the work was completed, the author's rights to the work cease at the end of that fifteenth calendar year.

Duration: photographic works
23. When a work is an audio-visual work, the author's rights in the work exist for the fifty calendar years immediately following the year in which the work was first made available to the public.

Duration: public benefit
24. The right of the Crown:

(a) in respect of laws, statutory instruments and decisions of courts or tribunals whether of a judicial or administrative nature, shall be for the period during which these laws, instruments or decisions are relevant to the administration of justice in St. Vincent and the Grenadines; and 

(b) in respect of works mentioned in subsection 3 of section 12, 

shall be for a period of ten calendar years immediately following the year in which the work was first published.

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