Law on the Protection of Intellectual Property, news exclusion and informatory-use and quotation exceptions
Law N° 31/2009 of 26/10/2009 on the Protection of Intellectual Property, arts. 198, 205, 209
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 14 December 2009.
A snippet reproduction rule binding public and private bodies.
As of 5 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.
Article 198 excludes published daily news or news communicated to the public, official legislative, administrative, or judiciary texts, and mere ideas, procedures, systems, methods, concepts, principles, or discoveries from copyright protection: a bare news item is never a protected work under Rwandan law, whichever outlet reports it first.
Article 209 separately permits, without the author's authorization and without payment of remuneration, subject to indicating the source and the author's name as far as practicable: the reproduction in a newspaper or periodical, or the broadcasting or other communication to the public, of an article published in a newspaper or periodical on current economic, political, or religious topics, or a broadcast work of the same character, where the right to reproduction, broadcasting, or communication to the public is not expressly reserved; the reproduction or communication to the public, for the purpose of reporting short current events, of a work seen or heard in the course of those events, to the extent justified by the informatory purpose; and the reproduction, broadcasting, or communication to the public of a political speech, lecture, address, sermon, or similar public address, or a speech delivered during legal proceedings, to the extent justified by the purpose of providing current information.
Article 205 separately permits free reproduction in the form of quotation of a short part of a published work, without authorization or payment, provided the reproduction is compatible with fair practice and does not exceed the extent justified by the purpose, and is accompanied by an indication of source and the author's name where it appears in the work quoted.
None of these three provisions is capped at a headline-length threshold distinct from the fair-practice and informatory-purpose tests they each already carry.
What it reaches
Instrument type
statute
Categories
Snippet reproduction
When LexLint raises it
aggregates_content