United States of America

Kazakhstan

Copyright and Related Rights

1. In Article 2(39) of the Copyright Law, "work(s) of amateur and folk arts" are defined as "a work including peculiar elements of traditional art heritage (folk fairy tales, folk poetry, folk songs, instrumental folk music, folk dances and plays, artistic forms of folk traditions, etc.)." Are these works protected works under Article 6 ("Copyrighted Items & General Provisions") or are they intended to be works that are excluded under Article 8(3) as "works of folklore"? If the latter, then are works of amateur and folk arts protected under other laws and, if so, how are they protected?

According to paragraph 1022 of the Report of the Working Party on the Accession of Kazakhstan (WPR) "works of amateur and folk arts", as defined by sub-paragraph 39 of Article 2 of the Copyright Law, are not protected by copyright or other laws of Kazakhstan. To be a "work of amateur and folk art" excluded from copyright protection under paragraph 3 of Article 8 of the Copyright Law, this work does not have to have an author(s), but instead has to be created by a community. Anonymous works and works created under a pseudonym have an author; only works created by a community are not protected under sub-paragraph 39 of Article 2 and paragraph 3 of Article 8 of the Copyright Law. Derivative works using an underlying work of amateur or folk arts, like derivative works using other public domain works are protected as independent works under paragraph 3 of Article 7 of the Copyright Law. For example, a musical composer who created an arrangement of a work of amateur and folk art will have that arrangement protected by paragraphs 1(5) of and 3(1) of Article 7 under the Copyright Law. Likewise, sound recordings, audio-visual works and other fixations of works covered by sub paragraph 39 of Article 2 will be protected under the Copyright Law. Performers/producers/broadcasting organizations have the rights enumerated in Chapter III "Related Rights" of the Copyright Law to fixations of works of amateur and folk arts. Works that can arguably fall under the folklore definition of sub-paragraph 39 of Article 2 of the Copyright Law, but which are protected as copyrighted works in the country of origin, will be protected as copyrighted works in Kazakhstan.