Law / Nepal

Copyright Act, 2059, database compilation protection and digital reproduction limit

Copyright Act, 2059 (2002), ss. 3(2), 16(2)

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 15 August 2002.

A database right rule binding public and private bodies.

As of 7 September 2026.

What it requires

  • Do not reproduce a collection of works, or a data set or database, that is original in its presentation, collection, or expression, without the author's or copyright owner's authorisation; Nepal has no sui generis database right, so protection turns on this originality test rather than on investment alone.
  • Do not reproduce a significant portion of a database through digital transmission where doing so would be prejudicial to the economic right of the author or the copyright owner.

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 3(2) protects, as an original work independent of the copyright in its underlying contents, any collection of works or any data or database readable with or without the support of a machine that is presented as original from the viewpoint of its presentation, collection, or expression. Nepal has no separate sui generis database right of the European kind; protection is compilation-based and turns on originality of selection or arrangement.

Section 16(2) separately bars reproducing a significant portion of a database through digital transmission, as an exception to the personal-use allowance, where doing so would be prejudicial to the economic right of the author or the copyright owner.

When LexLint raises it

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Read the law

Internet Archive capture of the official English translation published by the Nepal Law Commission

archived copyRead from a public archive copy, not the publisher directly. The publisher does not serve this page to automated readers, so a direct fetch was not an option here; how we access sources. Archived July 24, 2015. Publisher's page: http://www.lawcommission.gov.np/site/sites/default/files/Documents/the-copyright-act.pdf

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