Loi n°2000/011 du 19 décembre 2000 relative au droit d'auteur et aux droits voisins, article 4(2)(b) (protection des bases de données)
Loi n°2000/011 du 19 décembre 2000, art. 4(2)(b)
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 19 December 2000.
A database right rule binding private bodies.
As of 4 September 2026.
What it requires
- Treat a database compiled through an original selection, coordination, or arrangement of its contents as a protected composite work: do not exploit the whole or a substantial part of it by reproduction, representation, transformation, or distribution without the rights holder's authorization, even though the underlying facts and data are not themselves protected.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Criminal exposure note
Article 82(1) punishes the infringements defined at articles 80 and 81, including unauthorized exploitation of a protected work by representation, reproduction, transformation, or distribution, with five to ten years' imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 to 10,000,000 FCFA, or either penalty alone; article 82(2) doubles those penalties where the infringer is the rightsholder's own co-contracting party.
Penalty structure
Article 82(1) caps an infringement offence at a fine of 500,000 to 10,000,000 FCFA (XAF), alongside five to ten years' imprisonment, or either penalty alone; article 82(2) doubles the penalty where the infringer is the rightsholder's own co-contracting party, a figure not separately recorded here as a distinct fixed_cap since it was not located in the stored text.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- 4 September 2026
- Currency
- XAF
- Fixed cap
- 10,000,000
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.
Loi n°2000/011 du 19 décembre 2000 relative au droit d'auteur et aux droits voisins defines a "base de données" (article 4, definitions no. 12) as a collection of works, data, or other elements systematized so as to be searchable and processed by computer, and protects, as an original composite work without prejudice to any copyright in the pre-existing work (article 4(2)(b)), collections of works, including collections of folklore expressions or of simple facts or data, such as encyclopedias, anthologies, and data compilations, whether reproduced on a machine-exploitable medium or in any other form, where the selection or arrangement of the material constitutes an original work; there is no separate sui generis database right.
The underlying facts and data within a database remain unprotected; only an original selection or arrangement is a protected work.
Infringement (contrefaçon), defined at article 80 to include any exploitation of a literary or artistic work in violation of the law by representation, reproduction, transformation, or distribution by any means, is punished under article 82 by five to ten years' imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 to 10,000,000 FCFA, or either penalty alone, doubled where the offender is the rightsholder's own co-contracting party.
When LexLint raises it
crawls_webtrains_models
Read the law
Loi n°2000/011 du 19 décembre 2000, official consolidated text, WIPO Lex (WIPO Lex No. CM001)