Decreto-Lei n.º 02/2017, exclusão das notícias do dia, revista de imprensa e citação
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 17 April 2017.
A snippet reproduction rule binding public and private bodies.
As of 6 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 7(1)(a) excludes news of the day and reports of various events disclosed as simple information from copyright protection altogether, so a purely factual news item carries no copyright to begin with. For material that is protected, article 75(2)(c) permits, without the author's consent, a regular selection of periodical press articles in the form of a press review.
Article 75(2)(d) permits fixing, reproducing, or communicating short excerpts of a work when their use in reporting a current event is justified for information purposes. Article 75(2)(g) permits inserting citations or summaries of another's work in support of one's own views or for criticism, discussion, or teaching.
Article 75(2)(l) permits reproducing or communicating an already-accessible current-affairs article on an economic, political, or religious topic, or a broadcast work or material of like character, unless its reproduction or broadcast right has been expressly reserved. Article 76 conditions this free use on naming the author and publisher where possible and, for some of these uses, paying equitable remuneration.
None of these provisions states a length limit or a headline-only threshold, and no reported São Toméan decision testing whether a systematic aggregator's reproduction of headlines and snippets, as distinct from a traditional press review, falls within either exception has been located.
São Tomé and Príncipe has no separate press-publisher neighbouring right, no compelled platform-to-publisher bargaining regime, no recognized hot-news or misappropriation doctrine distinct from ordinary copyright law, and no case law on hyperlinking or framed display has been located.
Article 3(1)(b) protects a compilation as a copyright work only where its selection or arrangement of contents is itself an original creation, and the Code creates no sui generis database right and no text-and-data-mining exception or machine-readable opt-out mechanism. Article 229 puts the Code into force on the date of its publication, which the Diário da República issue carrying it dates to 17 April 2017.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Criminal exposure note
Article 197 punishes reproducing a protected work outside these exceptions with imprisonment of up to three years and a fine of 150 to 250 days, doubled on a repeated offense; negligence is punishable with a fine of 50 to 150 days.
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Direcção-Geral da Cultura and the Ministério da Cultura (public-domain works); ordinary civil and criminal courts
What it reaches
Instrument type
statute
Categories
Snippet reproduction
Obligation class
Attribution, Access restriction
When LexLint raises it
aggregates_content
Read the law
Decreto-Lei n.º 02/2017 de 19 de Abril de 2017, Diário da República n.º 47 de 17 de Abril de 2017