(1) Copyright and related rights, the protection of these rights and the liability for their infringement are regulated by the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, international treaties to which the Republic of Moldova is party, this Law and other normative acts.

(2) This Law regulates the relations arising in the creation and exploitation of literary, artistic and scientific works (copyright), performances, phonograms, videograms and broadcasts of broadcasting organizations (related rights), as well as other rights that are recognized in connection with intellectual activity in the field of literature, art and science.

(1) Where an international treaty to which the Republic of Moldova is a party lays down rules other than those provided for in this Law, the rules of the international treaty shall apply.

(2) Foreign natural persons and legal entities whose works or objects of related rights are protected by an international treaty to which the Republic of Moldova is a party shall enjoy protection equivalent to that granted by this Law to natural persons or legal entities of the Republic of Moldova (national treatment).

(3) This Law shall apply to all works and objects of related rights protected by international treaties to which the Republic of Moldova is a party, which, at the time of the entry into force of the corresponding treaty, have not entered the public domain in their country of origin as a result of the expiry of the term of protection previously granted and which have not entered the public domain in the Republic of Moldova as a result of the expiry of the term of protection previously granted.

The following terms are used in this law:

author - natural person through whose creative activity the work was created;

database - a compilation of data or other materials, whether or not protected by copyright or related rights, whether in machine-readable or other form, arranged systematically or methodically and accessible by electronic or other means;

communication to the public - transmission by air, including by satellite (broadcasting), cable or other means of images and/or sounds of works or subject-matter of related rights in such a way that the images or sounds can be perceived by persons not belonging to the usual circle of a family and close acquaintances in places where, without the act of transmission, they would not be able to perceive the images and/or sounds. The communication of encoded signals is an over-the-air or cable transmission (public communication) if the means of decoding are provided to the public by the over-the-air broadcasting organisation or the cable broadcasting organisation respectively or with its consent. Re-transmission by over-the-air (re-broadcasting) or cable which is not made simultaneously with the original public communication or which includes changes (dubbing, subtitling, insertion of advertisements) is considered as a new act of public communication by over-the-air or cable;

public performance - exhibition of the original or copy of a work, directly or indirectly, by means of projection of the image of a work, by slides or other means, on a screen or in any other similar way (except for communication by air or cable), in which the work, copy or image thereof is exhibited in a public place or in any other place from which it can be perceived by persons not belonging to the usual circle of family or close acquaintances. The public showing of an audiovisual work involves the non-consecutive showing of isolated images of the work, since the consecutive ordinary showing of images of an audiovisual work constitutes public performance;

distribution - the putting into circulation, by sale or by any other means of transfer of ownership, whether for consideration or free of charge, of the original or copies of a work or objects of related rights, as well as their public offering;

broadcast of a broadcasting organisation - a broadcast created directly by the broadcasting organisation or, at its request and from its own financial resources, by another organisation;

folk expression - a creation consisting of elements characteristic of the traditional cultural heritage, manifested and perpetuated by the community or individuals, reflecting the traditional artistic heritage of the community;

phonogram - an exclusively aural impression of any performance, work or expression of folklore, its sounds or representations, with the exception of aural impressions included in an audiovisual work;

printing (recording) - the fixation, by any means and in any manner, of sounds and/or images or representations thereof on any material medium, including electronic, which permits their perception, reproduction or communication;

rights management information - any information, provided by the rightholder, identifying the work or other object protected by this Law, the author or other rightholder or information on the conditions of exploitation of the work or other protected object, as well as any figures and codes representing such information;

performer - an actor, singer, musician, dancer, conductor or any other person who presents, recites, sings, plays, dances or interprets in any other way a work, folkloric expressions or performances of any kind, including variety, folk, circus, puppet or marionette shows;

public performance - the presentation of works, performances or phonograms by stage representation, recitation, song or other means, whether live or by various devices, means or processes (excluding public communication), in places accessible to the public or in any other places where the works, performances or phonograms may be perceived by persons not in the usual circle of family or close acquaintances;

lending - making available publications in any format for use, through publicly accessible institutions, for a limited period of time and without direct or indirect economic or commercial advantage;

rental - making available for use, for a limited period of time and for direct or indirect economic or commercial advantage, of a work or subject-matter of related rights;

technological protection measures - use of any technical equipment or components thereof, which, by its natural operation, is intended to control access to works or objects of related rights, preventing or limiting actions that are not authorized by the holders of rights protected by this law. Technological measures shall be considered effective when the exploitation of a work or other subject-matter protected by this Law is controlled by the rightholders through the application of an access code or a protection process, such as encoding, encryption or any other transformation of the work or other protected subject-matter, or through the application of a copy control mechanism, which, if not circumvented, fulfil the protection objectives;

work - the result of original intellectual creation in the field of literature, art and science, irrespective of the means of creation, the concrete manner and form of expression, its value and importance;

audiovisual work - a work consisting of a sequence of coherent fixed images, whether or not accompanied by sound, producing the impression of movement, intended for visual and auditory perception (if the images are accompanied by sound) by means of a particular device;

collective work - a work created by several natural persons - whose contributions form an indivisible whole, so that it is impossible to identify each person's contribution - on the initiative and under the direction of a natural or legal person who is to publish the work under his or her name;

phonogram producer - a natural or legal person on whose initiative and under whose responsibility, including financial responsibility, the first printing of the sounds of the performance, other sounds or representations of sounds is made;

producer of audiovisual works - the natural or legal person on whose initiative and responsibility, including financial responsibility, the audiovisual work is created;  

producer of videograms - natural or legal person on whose initiative and on whose responsibility, including financial responsibility, the videogram is printed;

computer program - a set of instructions, commands and/or codes expressed in any form or manner, intended to operate a computer to achieve a particular purpose or result. The term "computer program" also covers the program stored in the computer memory, the material accompanying a program created, the preparatory material obtained in the process of developing a program provided that it is designed and expressed in such a form that the preparatory material can subsequently result in the development of the computer program. The computer program may be expressed in any language, either source code or object code;

publication - offering copies of a work, performance, phonogram, videogram or broadcast to the public, with the consent of the author or other owner of copyright or related rights, in a sufficient number to meet the reasonable needs of the public;

interactive making available - making a work or subject-matter of related rights available by wire or wireless means, including the Internet or other computer networks, in such a way that any member of the public can access them from any place and at any time of their individual choice; 

reproduction - the making of one or more copies of a work or subject-matter of related rights, whether directly or indirectly, temporarily or permanently, by any means or in any form, including for the purpose of audio or video printing and/or storing a work or subject-matter of related rights on tangible or electronic carriers;

Reprographic reproduction - the reproduction in facsimile (exact copy) of the original written or graphic work, in full size, enlarged or reduced, by means of photocopying or any other similar technical means other than editing. Reprographic reproduction does not include the fixation of the work in electronic (including digital), optical or any other mechanisable form;

retransmission - the simultaneous broadcasting, by wire or cable, by one broadcasting organisation of the broadcasts of another broadcasting organisation by wire or cable;

satellite - any satellite operating in frequency bands which are reserved under telecommunications law for public communication (transmission over the air) of signals for reception by the public or which are reserved for private point-to-point communication. At the same time, in the latter case, the circumstances in which reception of the signals by members of the public takes place must be comparable to those in the former case;

exploitation - any action relating to the use in any form and in any manner of objects of copyright, related rights or other rights protected by this Act;

videogram - the first printing of images, whether or not accompanied by sound, regardless of whether or not it represents an audiovisual work.

(1) The State Agency for Intellectual Property (hereinafter - AGEPI):

a) shall contribute to the development and implementation, within the limits of its competence, of the appropriate policy for the protection, exercise and enforcement of copyright, related rights and other protected rights in accordance with this Law, international commitments and national interests of the Republic of Moldova;

b) submit proposals to the Government, ministries and other central administrative authorities when the undertaking of certain measures necessary for the implementation of the policy referred to in letter a) does not fall within its competence;

c) collects the necessary information, carries out training activities and consultations for informing ministries, other central administrative authorities, judicial authorities and other institutions, right holders and users about the importance and legal and practical aspects of the protection, exercise and implementation of copyright, related rights and other rights protected by this Law, elaborating and distributing for this purpose information materials, organizing information campaigns and actively collaborating with the media;

d) participates in the elaboration of draft normative acts on the protection, exercise and implementation of copyright, related rights and other rights protected by this Law;

e) represent the Republic of Moldova in international and regional organizations in the field of copyright, related rights and other rights protected by this Law;

f) establish and maintain, in accordance with the legislative and normative acts, mutually beneficial cooperation relations with similar offices, agencies and research institutions, with other organizations from other countries working in the field of copyright, related rights and other rights protected by this Law;

g) receives and examines applications for registration of copyright and related rights objects, registers and issues, on behalf of the State, certificates of their registration;

h) to approve, monitor and supervise the activity of collective management organisations of copyright and/or related rights;

i) issue control marks in accordance with the law.

(2) AGEPI shall establish the Mediation and Arbitration Commission specialized in the field of intellectual property, which shall examine and settle disputes assigned to their competence under the special laws in the field of intellectual property, including under the provisions of this Law, as well as disputes in the field of collective management of copyright and related rights. The Mediation and Arbitration Commission specialized in the field of intellectual property shall operate in accordance with the regulations approved by the Government.

(1) According to this Law, all works expressed in a certain objective form in the literary, artistic and scientific field are protected, regardless of whether they have been made known to the public or not.

(2) The author benefits from copyright protection of his work by the very fact of its creation. The creation and exercise of copyright shall not require the registration of the work or any other act of notification or other formalities.

(3) Copyright consists of patrimonial rights and moral rights (personal non-pecuniary rights).

(4) Copyright does not depend on the right of ownership of the material object in which the work has found expression. The acquisition of such an object does not confer on its owner any of the rights granted to the author by this Law.

(5) The patrimonial rights may belong to the author or to another natural or legal person who legally owns the rights (the rights holder).

(6) Copyright protection shall extend to the form of expression, but shall not extend to ideas, theories, scientific discoveries, processes, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such, nor to inventions contained in a work, regardless of the manner of their acquisition, explanation or expression.

(1) Copyright extends to:

a) works, regardless of where they were first published, whose copyright holder is a natural or legal person in the Republic of Moldova;

b) works published for the first time in the Republic of Moldova, irrespective of the domicile or place of business of the owner of the copyright in such works;

c) other works, in accordance with international treaties to which the Republic of Moldova is a party.

(2) A work shall also be considered as published for the first time in the Republic of Moldova if it has been published in the Republic of Moldova within 30 days from the date of its first publication abroad.

(1) Copyright extends to literary, artistic and scientific works expressed in the following forms:

a) written (manuscript, typescript, score, etc.);

b) oral (public performance, etc.);

c) audio or video print (mechanical, magnetic, digital, optical, etc.);

d) image (drawing, sketch, painting, plan, photogravure, etc.);

e) three-dimensional (sculpture, model, model, construction, etc.);

f) in other forms.

(2) Objects of copyright are:

a) literary works (stories, essays, novels, poems, etc.);

b) computer programs which are protected in the same way as literary works;

c) scientific works;

d) dramatic and dramatico-musical works, scripts and drafts of scripts, libretti, film synopses;

e) musical works with or without text;

f) choreographic works and pantomimes;

g) audiovisual works;

h) works of painting, sculpture, graphics and other works of fine art;

i) works of architecture, town planning and horticultural art;

j) works of applied art;

k) photographic works and works obtained by a process analogous to photography;

l) maps, plans, sketches and three-dimensional works in the fields of geography, topography, architecture and other fields of science;

m) databases;

n) other works.

(3) Without prejudice to the rights of the author of the original work, copyright shall also protect derivative and integral works on which one or more works and/or any other pre-existing materials are based, namely:

a) translations, adaptations, annotations, musical arrangements and any other transformations of literary, artistic or scientific works, provided that they constitute the results of intellectual creation;

b) collections of literary, artistic or scientific works (encyclopaedias and anthologies, compilations of other material or data, whether or not protected, including databases), provided that, by reason of the selection and arrangement of their contents, they constitute the results of intellectual creation.

(4) Copyright also protects as such a component part or other element of the work (including the title or characters of the work) which is itself an intellectual creation.

(5) The works, as well as component parts or other elements of the works specified in para. (1) to (4) shall be protected if they are original in the sense that they are in themselves intellectual creations of authorship. No other criteria, such as quantitative, qualitative or aesthetic characteristics, shall apply to determine whether such works are eligible for protection.

Copyright protection under this Act does not extend to:

a) normative acts, other acts of administrative, political or judicial character (laws, court decisions, etc.) and official translations thereof;

b) State symbols and official State signs (flags, coats of arms, decorations, money signs, etc.);

c) folklore expressions;

d) news of the day and various facts which are merely information.

(1) The natural person under whose name the work is first published shall, in the absence of proof to the contrary, be deemed to be the author.

(2) Where the work has been published anonymously or under a pseudonym which does not enable the author to be identified, the publisher whose name appears on the work shall, in the absence of proof to the contrary, be deemed to be the author's representative and shall be entitled to protect and exercise the author's rights.

(3) The natural or legal person whose name or designation appears on an audiovisual work, videogram or phonogram shall, in the absence of proof to the contrary, be considered the producer of the audiovisual work, videogram or phonogram in question.

(4) In order to inform the public about his rights, the copyright owner shall use the copyright protection symbol, which shall be applied on each copy of the work and shall consist of three elements:

a) the Latin letter "C" enclosed in a circle;

b) the name or designation of the exclusive copyright owner;

         c) the year of first publication of the work.

(5) The use of the copyright protection symbol shall not be a condition for granting the work the protection provided for by this Law.

(6) The owner of the exclusive copyright on a published or unpublished work may register it in the official state registers during the term of copyright protection.

(7) The person whose work has been registered shall be issued with a certificate of the prescribed model.  In accordance with art. 5 para. (2) and with para. (1) of this article, this certificate cannot serve as a presumption of paternity. In case of dispute, the court may recognise the registration as a presumption of authorship unless the contrary is proved.

(8) State registration of works protected by copyright and related rights shall be carried out by AGEPI in accordance with the regulation approved by the Government.

(1) The author of a work shall enjoy the following moral rights:

a) the right of authorship - the right to be acknowledged as the author of his work and the right to claim such acknowledgement, including by indicating his name on all copies of the published work or by referring to his name, as is customary, in the case of any exploitation of the work, except where this is impossible and where the absence of an obligation to indicate the author's name arises from other provisions of this Act;

b) the right to a name - the right of the author to decide how his name will appear in the exploitation of the work (real name, pseudonym or anonymous);

c) the right to respect for the integrity of the work - the right to protection of his work against any distortion, distortion or any other harm to the work that would damage the author's honour or reputation;

d) the right to disclosure of the work - the right to decide whether, how and when the work will be made known to the public;

e) the right to withdraw the work - the right of the author to withdraw his work from the commercial circuit, compensating the holder of the right of exploitation if he is harmed by the exercise of the withdrawal.

(2) Moral rights shall not be subject to any waiver or assignment and shall be imprescriptible, even if the author assigns his economic rights.

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