A comparative analysis of the legal requirement of originality in Copyright Law

Abstract

Copyright law has become a fundamental legal instrument in securing rights for the authors of different works basically throughout all the modern legal jurisdictions. The protection granted by such a regime protects the works of authors so they are not exploited by others thus securing both their interest and also protecting society as a whole. Copyright law, if legislated accordingly, stimulates authors to create more works and thus aids the economy by putting more goods on the market while at the same time facilitating the flow of information throughout society. On the other hand a bad legal framework in this area could very much do the opposite of what it is trying to achieve. For this scenario not to arise a balance is to be found and this is where the requirements of copyright protection come in; Fixation and the threshold of Originality. While fixation is a requirement so that a work can be accessed in a tangible form, Originality is what gives worth to a work. However legal originality and originality to society at large are different issues since the law should only aim to see if there is enough original input for the work to be worthwhile to protect. Thus finding an adequate requirement of originality is a very fundamental aspect of copyright law. In fact in the last two decades discussions regarding the threshold of originality in copyright have risen up again mainly due to the effect of new works like databases, which have challenged the old applications of the concept and raised questions on whether the concept is actually adequate. The new Maltese Copyright act was enacted in the Year 2000 to reflect such changes but one cannot stop there. The only way to truly understand how to better apply the threshold of originality is by looking at its application in different countries