On February 9, the second consultation session on intellectual property for exporters is held
The head of a travel company raised a question about the possibility of patenting excursion texts.
Answer:
The legal regime of excursion texts is not defined by the Belarusian legislator. The Law of the Republic of Belarus No. 262-Z of 17 May 2011 on Copyright and Related Rights (hereinafter - the Law) does not mention excursion texts as an object of copyright. Nevertheless, based on the general terms of the Law, it is possible to protect excursion texts by copyright under certain conditions.
1. According to Article 6 of the Law, copyright applies to works of science, literature and art, which are the result of creative activity, irrespective of the purpose and value of the works, as well as the manner of their expression. In fact, excursion texts are literary works.
It is important that an excursion text is fixed in an objective form.
The same Article 6 of the Law states that copyright applies to both published and non-published works existing in some objective form:
written (manuscript, typescript, musical notation, etc.);
oral (public speech, public performance, etc.);
sound or video recordings (mechanical, magnetic, digital, optical, etc.);
electronic, including digital;
in some other form.
Excursion texts can be realized in all of these forms.
Since Article 6 of the Law does not specify such literary works as oral works, but the Law contains a general reference to the legal protection of works expressed orally, it can be concluded that the tour guide's speeches are protected by copyright.
It is necessary to take into account that the oral text of a guided tour, performed or spoken in public, does not constitute a stable form of representation. The text should be fixed in more stable forms provided for by law.
2. The main requirement of the legislation: the excursion text must be the result of human creative work. Firstly, it is a person who must create the text, not a robot. Secondly, the text must be an expression of a person's creative abilities. It is difficult to consider a simple statement of facts as a result of intellectual activity.
If the accompanying excursion text is of a creative nature, it will be subject to copyright.
