The 1992 Copyright and Neighboring Rights Law includes layouts and topography among the works protected in the United Arab Emirates against any unlawful use or aggression. The term of protection of author rights is determined by the period his life and 25 years after his death.
The term of protection of copyrights and neighbouring rights will be determined, after introducing the amendments to the 1992 Copyrights law, as follows:
• As regards the author rights, the term of protection is determined by the period of life of the owner and 25 years after his death. The draft amendment will extend this period to 50 years as referred to in the TRIPS Agreement.
• The term of protection of the rights of the joint authors is determined by their period of life and 50 years begin from the date of the death of the last surviving author.
• The term of protection of the authors of collective works except the authors of applied arts is 50 years begin from the date of the first publication.
• The economic rights of the works published for the first time after the death of their author expire after fifty years starting the first day of the next calendar year of their first publications.
• The term of protection of the rights of the authors of the applied artwork is 25 years from the date of their publication.
• The term of protection of the rights of the performers is 50 years from the date of the Accomplishment of the work performed. If the performance was fixed in a phonogram the period would be calculated from the end of the year in which the fixation was made.
• The term of protection of the rights of the producers of phonograms is 50 years from the date of publication or fixation if it was not published.
• The term of protection of the rights of the broadcasting organisations is 20 years from the next year to the year in which the first transmission of the program was made.
