Law on Copyright and Related Rights, Database Right and Software Exceptions
Law No. 262-Z of 17 May 2011, arts. 14 and 39, on Copyright and Related Rights (as amended)
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 1 December 2011.
A database right rule binding public and private bodies.
As of 6 September 2026.
What it requires
- Do not copy, reproduce, or otherwise use a protected database's compilation structure, or another copyrighted work it contains, beyond archival copying or another free-use ground this Law recognizes, without the rightsholder's authorization.
- This Law has no text-and-data-mining exception or opt-out mechanism, so a training use resting on none of the Law's free-use grounds needs the rightsholder's authorization.
- Expect a rightsholder to be able to elect statutory compensation of one to fifty thousand base units per infringement instead of proving actual loss.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Private right of actionYes
Criminal exposure note
Criminal Code art. 201(2): illegal distribution or other illegal use of a copyrighted work, related right, or industrial property object, committed within a year after an administrative penalty for the same violation or yielding income in a large amount (five hundred or more base units), is punishable by community service, a fine, restriction of freedom for up to three years, or deprivation of freedom for up to two years; art. 201(3) raises this to a fine, arrest, restriction of freedom for up to five years, or deprivation of freedom for the same term where the act is repeated, committed by a group, committed by an official using their position, or causes damage in a large amount.
Statutory damages
Law No. 262-Z art. 56(2) lets a rightsholder elect, instead of proving actual damages, court-determined compensation of one to fifty thousand base units per infringement, based on the nature of the violation; this is a single court-determined range for the infringement rather than a per-victim amount. per_person_minimum records the floor of that range at the base unit's current value of BYN 45 (Council of Ministers Resolution No. 651 of 20 November 2025, in effect from 1 January 2026, already cited on this jurisdiction's privacy document); the ceiling is fifty thousand base units, BYN 2,250,000 at that rate.
- As of
- 2 September 2026
- Currency
- BYN
- Per person minimum
- 45
What it reaches
Obligation class
Licensing
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
Article 14 protects a database as a compilation work, and expressly states that this protection does not extend to the data or other information the database contains, so Belarus's database right is compilation-only rather than a sui generis right in the underlying data.
The Law's free-use chapter (arts. 32 to 39) has no text-and-data-mining exception or reservation mechanism; article 39 lets a person who lawfully possesses a copy of a computer program or database copy it only for archival purposes or to replace a lost, destroyed, or unusable lawfully acquired copy, not to build a training corpus.
Using a copyrighted database's compilation structure, or another protected work, to train an AI model therefore ordinarily requires the rightsholder's authorization unless one of the Law's other free-use grounds, such as quotation for research or informational purposes, applies. A rightsholder may sue for infringement and elect statutory compensation instead of proving actual loss.
Illegal distribution or use of a protected work committed after a prior administrative penalty for the same conduct, or that yields a large gain, is also a criminal offence under the Criminal Code.
When LexLint raises it
crawls_webtrains_models