Copyright Protection Law, database and excluded subject matter
Law No. 7 of 2002, arts. 3(3), 4
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 August 2002.
A database right rule binding public and private bodies.
As of 6 September 2026.
What it requires
- A database or compilation is protected by copyright only if the selection or arrangement of its contents is creative; scraping data from a compilation that is not creatively selected or arranged does not infringe a copyright interest in the compilation itself, since Qatar has no sui generis database right.
- Bare facts, ideas, procedures, mathematical concepts, and daily news of a mere informatory nature are excluded from copyright protection, so reproducing them as such does not by itself infringe copyright, though a creative derivative expression of them is still protected.
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 3(3), read against article 2's list of originally protected works, protects a database as a derived work only 'if creative in the arrangement of selection of their subject matter', the same originality-in-selection standard the article applies to encyclopedia collections and folklore compilations; Qatar confers no separate sui generis database right beyond this compilation standard.
Article 4 excludes laws, legal provisions, administrative decisions, international treaties, and official documents from protection (though a creative compilation of such material is still protected), along with daily news and other news of a mere informatory nature, and ideas, procedures, operational methods, mathematical concepts, principles, and mere data, while any derivative expression of the latter category remains protectable.
A scraper copying data from a non-creatively-arranged database, or copying facts, ideas, or bare daily news, does not infringe a copyright interest in that material under this Law.
When LexLint raises it
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