Collection of Laws for Electronic Access
YH
CAMEROON
(3) Where the publishing business was operated in partnership or as a joint enterprise,
the attribution of the said business to one of the former partners or joint owners as a result of
liquidation or sharing out may, under no circumstance, be considered as transfer.
47.—(1) The publishing contract shall, irrespective of the cases provided for by
ordinary law or by the preceding sections, come to an end when the publisher completely
destroys all copies of the work.
(2) The contract shall be rightfully terminated when the publisher fails to republish the
work after the copyright holder has served him formal notice giving him a deadline for stocks
to run out. The edition shall be considered to be out of print if two requests for supply of
copies sent to the publisher are not met within six months.
(3) If the copyright holder dies or, as the case may be, is dissolved without completing
the work, the contract shall be terminated for the unfinished part of the work, unless the
publisher and the rightful claimants of the holder reach an agreement.
48. The copyright holder may grant the publisher preferential rights for the publication
of his future works provided they relate to a specified genre. However, this right shall, for
each genre, be limited to five new works.
49.—(1) The following shall not constitute a publishing contract:
(a) the “author-financed” contract whereby the copyright holder pays the publisher an
agreed sum to make a specified number of copies of the work under the form and following
the modes of expression defined in the contract, and to ensure their publication and
distribution. This contract shall constitute a hiring of the work;
(b) the “fifty-fifty” contract whereby the copyright holder assigns a publisher to make
at his own cost a specified number of copies of the work in the form and following the modes
of expression defined in the contract, and to ensure their publication and distribution in return
for a mutually contracted undertaking to share proportionally the profits and losses occurring
therefrom. This contract shall be a partnership.
(2) The contracts referred to in subsection (1) above shall be deemed concluded only
after the approval of the competent collective management body.
Chapter IV
Audiovisual Production Contract
50. The audiovisual production contract shall be the agreement whereby one or more
individuals undertake, in return for payment, to create an audiovisual work for an individual
or a corporate body known as the producer.
51.—(1) The contract binding the producer to the authors of an audiovisual work other
than the author of a musical composition shall, unless otherwise stipulated and without
prejudice to the recognized rights of the author, entail the transfer to the producer of the
exclusive rights to explore the said work.
CM001EN
Copyright, Law, 19/12/2000, No. 2000/011
page 15/25