Loi n° 91-12, quotation and current-events press-reproduction exception
Loi n° 91-12 du 10 juin 1991 portant protection du droit d'auteur du folklore et des droits voisins, arts. 21-22 (citations et reproduction d'actualité par la presse)
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 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 21 permits, once a work has been lawfully made accessible to the public and provided the work's title and the author's name are mentioned, short analyses and quotations taken from it, including quotations of newspaper and periodical articles in the form of a press review, where they conform to fair usage and are justified by a scientific, critical, polemical, teaching or informational purpose; such quotations and analyses may be used in the original or in translation.
Article 22 separately permits reproducing by the press, or broadcasting, for informational purposes, political, social or economic news articles published in their original form or in translation, and speeches delivered in public at official ceremonies or at political, judicial, administrative or religious meetings and assemblies. This is on condition that the author's name and the source are mentioned and that the right of reproduction has not been expressly reserved.
Neither article caps the quotation or the reproduction at a headline-length or short-extract threshold beyond the fair-usage and informational-purpose tests, and no reported Togolese decision applies either article to a systematic aggregator's reproduction of headlines and snippets, as opposed to an individual quotation or a traditional press review.
Togo 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 and the law's civil seizure remedies, and no located case law on hyperlinking or framed display.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Private right of actionYes
Criminal exposure note
Reproducing, representing or distributing a protected work without authorization is the délit de contrefaçon (art. 84); article 85 states three months to two years' imprisonment and a fine of XOF 500,000 to XOF 1,000,000 where the offender is shown to have engaged habitually in the acts article 84 describes, so an isolated act of infringement draws the law's civil remedies (seizure, confiscation, damages) rather than this criminal penalty.
Penalty structure
Applies where the infringer is shown to have habitually engaged in counterfeiting acts (art. 85); a first or isolated act of counterfeiting under article 84 carries the seizure, confiscation and damages remedies of articles 78 to 87 rather than this criminal fine.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- 5 September 2026
- Minimum
- 500,000
- Currency
- XOF
- Fixed cap
- 1,000,000
What it reaches
Instrument type
statute
Categories
Snippet reproduction
Obligation class
Attribution
When LexLint raises it
aggregates_content
Read the law
Loi n° 91-12 du 10 juin 1991
text published by the Bureau Togolais du Droit d'Auteur (BUTODRA), the collecting society the law itself creates