1- Purpose of border measures concerning copyright and neighboring rights
Border measures in the field of copyright or neighboring rights concern literary or
artistic works when they are imported, exported or in transit in a physical medium
such as a book, document, cassette, CD, VCD, DVD or painting.
A work is considered to be any literary or artistic creation as defined by Article 3 of
the said Law, which may for example be in the form of writings, computer programs,
audiovisual musical works, works of fine art, architecture, photography or applied
arts, or drawings of creations from the clothing industry.
As far as neighboring rights are concerned, they refer to intellectual property rights
other than copyright which benefit performers, producers of phonograms,
broadcasting organizations and publishers, and are covered by this legislation.
Some examples are the rights which performers have in their performances, the rights
which producers have in their audio recordings and the rights which broadcasting
organizations have in their radio and TV broadcasts.
The author of a work is the person who creates it; he is the owner of the work, and is
free to decide on its use and control the fate of this work. This person is called the
“creator” or “author” or “rights holder”.
The counterfeit or pirated merchandise generally consists of copies made without
the consent of the rights holder or a person duly authorized by the rights holder in the
country of production, which are made directly or indirectly from an article in cases
where the making of these copies would have constituted an infringement of
copyright [or a neighboring right].
Unlike the field of industrial property, where protection of the right depends on the
registration of the mark, copyright and neighboring rights in a literary or artistic work
are protected from the time of creation of the work until the expiry of a term ranging,
according to the situation, from 50 to 70 years, it being understood that according to
the provisions of the above Law, the rights in a work shall be protected during the life
of the author and 70 years after his death.
Measures to suspend the free circulation of counterfeit or pirated merchandise are
taken in accordance with the following arrangements:
2- Procedure for submission of a request
A request may be submitted to the Central Department by either the copyright
holder or his authorized representative or by BMDA. A preliminary examination of the
file is made by the Central Department in cooperation with BMDA.
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