On March 17, 1999 the General assembly in the Lebanese Parliament approved the new proposed Copyright Law. The Law No. 75 was published in the Official Gazette No. 18 dated April 3, 1999 under title "Literary and Artistic Property" , and will come into affect 2 months from the publication date.
This new law complies with the TRIPs Agreements and other Conventions that Lebanon may enter in the future. We will be publishing a translation of the Law as published in the Official Gazette in our May Issue. Highlights of the law are:
-Computer software is protectable (Article 2).
-Initial publication dates calculated from the date of publication in Lebanon or in one of the countries party to the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention (Article 13).
-Exploitation of the works is subject to copyright protection (Article 17)
-Author's moral rights are preserved and transfer of ownership after death is defined (Article 22)
-Copies may be made for educational use (Article 25 & 32).