Copyright Act, fair dealing exceptions
Copyright Act, Cap. 300 (Act 1998-4, as amended by Act 2006-1), ss. 51-53 (Fair Dealing)
A citation is an address, not a summary. The first part names the law; what follows narrows it to the exact section, article or paragraph.
In force since 14 August 1998.
A copyright and text and data mining (TDM) rule binding public and private bodies.
As of 5 September 2026.
What it requires
- Characterise text-and-data-mining as research or private study, and weigh the extent copied, the purpose, and the effect on the work's market, before relying on fair dealing rather than a licence.
- Do not rely on a Barbadian database right for a scraped compilation; only ordinary copyright in an original compilation applies.
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
Section 51 excuses fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic work for research or private study from infringement, and section 52 separately excuses fair dealing for criticism or review, and for reporting current events, if accompanied by sufficient acknowledgment.
Section 53 directs a court to weigh the nature of the work, the extent used relative to the whole, the purpose and character of the use, and the effect on the work's market or value, so training a model on scraped copyrighted text under section 51 depends on characterising the use as research and satisfying those factors. The Act defines a literary work to include a written table or compilation, so a compiled database is protected only as an ordinary literary work if original.
When LexLint raises it
crawls_webtrains_models