Copyright registration in Romania. Romania is a country at the confluence of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. Romania is a developing country, with a high-income economy, ranking 49th in the Human Development Index. It has the world’s 45th largest economy by nominal GDP. Romania experienced rapid economic growth in the early 2000s; its economy is now based predominantly on services. It is a producer and net exporter of machines and electric energy through companies such as Automobile Dacia and OMV Petrom. Accordingly, many businesses want to enter this market and one of the most important preparations a business needs to take before expanding to this country is to learn the procedure of copyright registration in Romania.
Copyright in Romania
Unlike other intellectual property rights such as trademarks, patents, industrial designs, plant varieties, etc., copyright does not need to be registered for protection but will be automatically protected from the time the works are created.
The creation must be visible in a certain material form, like content, quality, form, medium, language, published or unpublished, registered or unregistered.
Accordingly, whether registered or not, the copyright to the work will still be protected. However, the creator should still apply for copyright registration in Romania early because early registration will give the author/owner of the work many advantages in the event of a dispute.
When unauthorized use of work occurs around the world, the owner of a work who has made a copyright registration in Romania will not have to waste time and complicate matters with proving himself/herself to be the legitimate owner of the work.
Thereby, in order to avoid passivity, the owner of the work should make a copyright registration in Romania immediately to protect their rights and interests when there is an infringement.
Copyright registration in Romania
Romania is a member country of The Berne Convention for Copyright since 1927.
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (the Berne Convention) is an international agreement governing copyright. The agreement was first accepted in Berne, Switzerland, in 1886.
As Romania is a contracting party of the Berne Convention, any work originating in Romania will be given copyright protection in each of the Berne Convention member countries.
In most countries, copyright protection is automatic as soon as the work existed in material form. However, the copyright registration in Romania is critical in order for the copyright owner to obtain evidence of copyright.
Evidence of copyright is extremely important even when the works are automatically protected according to copyright law.
When registering, the work will get an application submission date, as well as information about the creation and proof of creative concept and development. This provides unambiguous proof of authorship and ownership that can’t be denied.
Proof of copyright is essential in an age when the publishing, dissemination, and theft of material is extremely easy with the exposure of the Internet.
If copyright registration is not made, copyright owners will lose a big amount of money as well as time needed to resolve issues related to copyright, proving ownership of the original work.
If the copyright owner has already registered for copyright protection to the IP office, they would have a strong legal foundation which would increase their chance of winning against the violating parties.
Documents for copyright registration in Romania
To obtain copyright registration in Romania, the author of the work needs to prepare the following documents:
- Declaration of copyright registration in Romania;
- Two copies of copyrighted work;
- Documents proving the right to apply;
- Written consent of co-authors, if the work has co-authors;
- Written consent of the co-owners, if the copyright is jointly owned;
- Notarized identity card of the author or owner of the work;
- Power of Attorney, if the applicant is an authorized person;
- Notarized copy of the company’s business registration certificate (if the owner is a company).
The copyright law of Romania
In Romania, copyright law (drept de autor) is defined by the Law No. 8/1996 on authors rights and related rights, as republished in 2018, which currently implements European copyright law (directives). Copyright is acquired irrespective of formalities, and normally belongs to the natural person/s who created the protected work. A protected work is created if the work is the author’s own intellectual creation. Like other EU civil law jurisdictions, Romanian copyright law recognises two types of rights: moral rights and patrimonial rights.
In Romania, there is no requirement for a copyright notice in order to obtain copyright protection, as original works are automatically protected by copyright as of their creation. However, the author and other copyright holders are entitled to place on their works a copyright notice consisting of the letter C in a circle together with their name, and the place and year of the first publication. In cases where such a copyright notice is displayed, there is a presumption that the work is copyright protected in favour of the person using the copyright notice, until otherwise proven.
You can see a list of Romania IP firms here.