Copyright registration in Saint Lucia. Saint Lucia is an island country in the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. An educated workforce and improvements in roads, communications, water supply, sewerage, and port facilities have attracted foreign investment in tourism and in petroleum storage and transshipment in this country. Since then, Saint Lucia has been able to attract foreign business and investment, especially in its offshore banking and tourism industries, which is St. Lucia’s main source of revenue. 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 Saint Lucia.
Copyright in Saint Lucia
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The creation must be visible in a certain material form, like content, quality, form, medium, language, published or unpublished, registered or unregistered.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 Saint Lucia 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 Saint Lucia 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 Saint Lucia immediately to protect their rights and interests when there is an infringement.
Copyright registration in Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia is a member country of The Berne Convention for Copyright since 1993.
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 Saint Lucia is a contracting party of the Berne Convention, any work originating in Saint Lucia 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 Saint Lucia 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 Saint Lucia
To obtain copyright registration in Saint Lucia, the author of the work needs to prepare the following documents:
- Declaration of copyright registration in Saint Lucia;
- 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 Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia has been a member of the Berne Convention since 24 August 1993, the World Trade Organization since 1 January 1995 and the WIPO treaty since 6 March 2002.
As of 2018 the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), an agency of the United Nations, listed the Copyright Act, 1995 (Act No. 10 of 1995) as the main IP law enacted by the legislature of Saint Lucia. WIPO holds the text of this law in the WIPO Lex database.
The act was modified by the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2000 (Act No. 7 of 2000). The amendments provided for the registration of collective societies, protected the moral rights of performers, extended the range of civil remedies and made other changes, but did not change the definitions of protected works or durations of protection.
You can see a list of Saint Lucia IP firms here.