SRI LANKA Law and Practice Contributed by: Anomi Wanigasekera, Sabeera Shariff and Saambavi Siththananthan, Julius & Creasy
However, no protection shall be extended to: • any idea, procedure, system, method of operation, concept, principle, discovery or mere data, even if expressed, described, explained, illustrated or embodied in a work; • any official text of a legislative, administrative or legal nature, as well as any official translation thereof; and • news of the day published, broadcast or publicly communicated by any other means. 3.3 Copyright Authorship Definition of an Author As defined under the IP Act, “author” means the physical person who has created the work, and “work of joint authorship” means a work to the creation of which two or more authors have contributed, provided the work does not qualify as a “collective work”. Original Ownership of Economic Rights According to Section 14 (1), the author who creat - ed the work shall be the original owner of economic rights. However, note the following. In respect of a work of joint authorship, the co-authors shall be the original owners of the economic rights. If, however, a work of joint authorship consists of parts that can be used separately and the author of each part can be identified, the author of each part shall be the original owner of the economic rights in respect of the part that they have created. In respect of a collective work, the physical person or legal entity at the initiative and under the direction of whom or which the work has been created shall be the original owner of the economic rights. In respect of a work created by an author employed by a physical person or legal entity in the course of their employment, the original owner of the economic rights shall be the employer, unless provided otherwise by way of a contract. If the work is created pursuant to a commission, the original owner of economic rights shall be the person who commissioned the work, unless otherwise provided in a contract.
In respect of an audio-visual work, the original owner of the economic rights shall be the producer, unless otherwise provided in a contract. The co-authors of the audio-visual work and the authors of the pre-exist - ing works, included in, or adapted for, the making of the audio-visual work shall, however, maintain their economic rights in their contributions or pre-existing works, respectively, to the extent that those contribu - tions or pre-existing works can be the subject of acts covered by their economic rights separately from the audio-visual work. Presumption of Authorship and of Representation of the Author Section 15 (1) states that the physical person whose name is indicated as the author on a work in the usual manner shall, in the absence of proof to the contrary, be presumed to be the author of the work. The provi - sions of this section shall be applicable even if the name is a pseudonym, where the pseudonym leaves no doubt as to the identity of the author. Additionally, Section 15 (2) states that the physical person or legal entity whose name appears on an audio-visual work shall, in the absence of proof to the contrary, be pre - sumed to be the producer of said work. 3.4 Copyright Rights Economic rights and moral rights are recognised in Sri Lanka. Economic Rights As per Section 9 (1) of the IP Act, the owner of copy - right of a work shall have the exclusive right to carry out or to authorise the following acts in relation to the work: • reproduction of the work; • translation of the work; • adaptation, arrangement or other transformation of the work; • the public distribution of the original and each copy of the work by sale, rental, exportation or other - wise; • rental of the original or a copy of an audio-visual work, a work embodied in a sound recording, a computer program, a database or a musical work in the form of notation, irrespective of the owner - ship of the original or copy concerned;
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