Copyright

“Copyright” covers those aspects of intellectual property rights that offer protection for music, literature and other artistic creation. Copyright does not have to be applied for. The protection arises automatically as and when an artistic work is created. There is no registration, in any official register, of the works that are copyright protected. This means that PRV has no statutory duties arising from copyright. All the same, we at PRV consider it a natural part of our duties to supply information and to answer questions on copyright.

What copyright means

Copyright provides artists, photographers, authors and other creators with the right to economic compensation and an exclusive right to control the use of the works they have created.
Compositions in speech or in writing, computer programmes, databases, musical and stage works, works of pictorial art, architectural art, applied art – as well as all expressions of spiritual creation with a literary or artistic content – are protected by copyright law. For a work to be eligible for copyright protection, it must have attained the high standard required of a work. This implies that the work should display a certain measure of originality or individuality.

Copyright in Sweden is governed by the provisions of the Act on Copyright in Literary and Artistic Works (Swedish Code of Statutes, SFS 1960:729), known as the Copyright Act. Additional provisions are contained in the Copyright Regulation (1993:1212) and the International Copyright Regulation (1994:193).
Copyright protection is often indicated by the copyright symbol ©. However, under Swedish law, this has no bearing on whether copyright applies or not. The Copyright Act thus applies whether the symbol is used or not.

Creator

The copyright to a work always belongs to one or more individuals. However, the right to use the work may be assigned wholly or in part to a publisher, for example. When the creator dies, the copyright passes to the creator’s survivors.

Period of protection

After the death of a creator, copyright protection for the work remains. Copyright protection continues for 70 years after the death of the author.

Copyright on the Web and on other digital media

Copyright applies in the same way on the Web as for other forms of publishing. In this case, it is the personal design of text and pictures that is protected, i.e. not factual information or underlying ideas.

For more information about copyright, visit the web page on copyright published by the Swedish Ministry of Justice. The page also contains links that will take you on to sources of more in-depth information on the subject.

Swedish Ministry of Justice