Copyright registration in the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic, also known by its short-form name, Czechia, formerly known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The Czech Republic is a unitary parliamentary republic and developed country with an advanced, high-income social market economy. It is a welfare state with a European social model, universal health care, and tuition-free university education. It ranks 12th in the UN inequality-adjusted human development and 24th in the World Bank Human Capital Index. 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 the Czech Republic.
Copyright in the Czech Republic
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The creation must be visible in a certain material form, like content, quality, form, medium, language, published or unpublished, registered or unregistered.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, copyright registration is still advised 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 registered copyright in advance 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 to protect their rights and interests when there is an infringement.
Copyright registration in the Czech Republic
The Czech Republic 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 the Czech Republic is a contracting party of the Berne Convention, any work originating in the Czech Republic will be given the same copyright protection in each of the Berne Convention member countries. The original from the Czech Republic can be that the work is made and published for the first time in this country or if the author of the work is of the Czech Republic ethnicity.
While in most countries, copyright protection is automatic as soon as the work existed in material form, copyright registration in the Czech Republic is critical in order for the copyright owner to obtain evidence of copyright.
Evidence of copyright is extremely important even when copyright is obtained automatically.
When registering, the creation gets a date and a time stamp recorded, 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 significant big amount of money and time attempting to fight copyright issues and prove 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 the Czech Republic
To obtain copyright registration in the Czech Republic, the author of the work needs to prepare the following documents:
- Declaration of copyright registration in the Czech Republic;
- 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 the Czech Republic
The Copyright Act of the Czech Republic constitutes copyright law. The Act was created based on supranational legislations such as international treaties and conventions and EU directives and regulations.
In 2014, a new Civil Code, which regulates a number of named contracts used in civil law, including the license agreement, came into effect. Therefore, the regulation of the license agreement in the Copyright Act was repealed.
The Czech Republic has been a member of the World Trade Organization since 1 January 1995 and the WIPO Copyright Treaty since 6 March 2002.
As of 2018 the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), an agency of the United Nations, listed Consolidated Version of Act No. 121/2000 Coll., on Copyright and Rights Related to Copyright and on Amendment to Certain Acts (the Copyright Act, as amended by Act No. 81/2005 Coll., Act No. 61/2006 Coll. and Act No. 216/2006 Coll.) as the main copyright law enacted by the legislature of Czechia.
You can see a list of Czech republic IP firms here.