Copyright is an intellectual property right recognized and protected by law. In Singapore, this is essentially covered under the Copyright Act 2021. Copyright exists in all forms of works, such as books, periodicals, magazines, compilations of information, photographs, manuscripts, computer programs, drawings, sculpture, music scores, lyrics, sound recordings, films, television broadcasts, cable programmes etc. The Singapore Copyright Act 2021 provides details of exceptions in instances of Fair Use and Education, which allow for copying within the stipulated limits.
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And if you wish to find more information on copyright matters, please see SMU Libraries Guide to Copyright.
Works that are in the public domain are not protected by copyright because:
Works in the public domain may be used without any limitations.
Fair Use
There are some “fair use” exceptions to copyright infringement under our copyright law. A certain amount of copying, for example, is permissible as long as it is a situation of “fair” as determined by the Court.
Factors the Court may consider in determining “fair use” include:
In other cases, fair use for the purposes of criticism, review or reporting current events would not constitute copyright infringement. In most of such cases, a sufficient acknowledgment of the work is required.
If you copy works for a specific purpose of research and study, it is considered fair use so long copying limits are observed, as indicated in the Copyright Act:
where the edition has 10 or more pages —
| (i) | only 10% or less of the number of pages in the edition are copied in total; or |
| (ii) | if the edition is divided into chapters — the pages copied are all from the same chapter; |
Creative Commons (CC) is a not for profit organization that helps the public to share creative content by providing free licenses and tools to content creators. CC content (including images, music and artwork) may be shared and reused according to the CC license applied.