Copyright Act, Database Protection
Copyright Act, 2005 (Act 690), ss. 1, 19 (Database Protection)
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 3 June 2005.
A database right rule binding private bodies.
As of 4 September 2026.
What it requires
- Do not reproduce a database whose selection or arrangement of contents is an original intellectual creation without the rightsholder's authorization; Ghana has no sui generis database right, so an unoriginal, purely factual database is not itself protected on that basis.
- Do not rely on the personal-use exception to copy the whole or a substantial part of a database in digital form; that exception does not extend to a database.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Criminal exposure note
A person who infringes a right protected under the Act commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of not more than one thousand penalty units and not less than five hundred penalty units, or imprisonment of not more than three years, or both; a continuing offence carries a further fine of not less than twenty-five penalty units and not more than one hundred penalty units for each day it continues (s. 43).
Penalty structure
Section 43 (Penalty for copyright offence) sets a fine of not more than one thousand penalty units and not less than five hundred penalty units, or imprisonment of not more than three years, or both, with a further fine of twenty-five to one hundred penalty units for each day a continuing offence persists. One penalty unit equals twelve Ghana cedis under the Fines (Penalty Units) Act, 2000 (Act 572), as recorded by the Ghana Revenue Authority, making the base ceiling twelve thousand Ghana cedis.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- 4 September 2026
- Currency
- GHS
- Fixed cap
- 1,000
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Copyright Office; prosecuted before the ordinary criminal courts
What it reaches
Obligation class
Access restriction
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 1 defines a literary work eligible for copyright to include encyclopedias, dictionaries, directories, time tables, anthologies, databases, or a compilation of data or other material, whether in machine-readable form, which by reason of the selection or arrangement of contents constitutes an intellectual creation.
Ghana has no separate sui generis database right: a database that is a mere collection of facts, without an original selection or arrangement, is not protected on that basis alone. Section 19's personal-use exception, which otherwise permits reproduction for a person's exclusive personal use, expressly does not extend to reproducing the whole or a substantial part of a database in digital form.
When LexLint raises it
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