Copyright Act, 2024, criticism, review and reporting exception
Copyright Act, 2024 (No. 14 of 2024), s. 53 (Criticism, review and reporting)
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.
A snippet reproduction rule binding private bodies.
As of 7 September 2026.
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 53(1) permits, without infringing copyright or related rights, fair dealing with a work for the purposes of criticism or review of that or another work, or fair dealing with a work other than a photograph for the purpose of reporting current events, so long as it is accompanied by sufficient acknowledgment (defined in section 51 as identifying the work by its title and identifying the author, subject to exceptions).
Section 55 sets the general factors for determining fair dealing across the Act's exceptions: the nature of the work, the extent and substantiality of the part used relative to the whole, the purpose and character of the use, and the effect on the potential market for or value of the work.
The Act carries no headline-length or short-extract cap distinct from this fair-dealing test, and no reported decision in this jurisdiction applies section 53 to a systematic news aggregator rather than an individual quoting a published work. The Act's neighbouring rights, covering performers and producers of sound recordings, do not extend to a print or online news publisher's own reporting.
When LexLint raises it
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