The DPRK Copyright Law adopted in 2001 regulates in detail the objects of copyright.
According to the law, objects of copyright in the DPRK are included by scientific treatises, writings like novel and poem, music, theatrical arts like opera, drama, acrobatics and dance, presentations like movie and TV programs, works of art like paintings, sculptures, industrial arts, calligrap
Objects of copyright must be created by intellectual activities of writer. The writing made by copying other’s intellectual creation as it is or the one made by copying the contents and expressions of other person’s writings as they are in the method of changing active voice into passive one are not acknowledged as those created by intellectual activities.
Those made by revising, arranging, dramatizing, coloring, adapting and translating the originals, and those made by translating national classics in modern words are independent ones and they are considered as the objects of copyright.
Compilations like dictionaries and selections rationally made by editing and composing the originals are also the objects of copyright. In this case, they must assume creativeness in selecting and arranging materials.
If every creation is to be an object of copyright, it must have valuable information and belong to science, literature, arts or music.
Those which reflect such objective facts as statistics, current news and information data, laws and official documents prepared by individual state organs cannot be the objects of copyright as they do not reflect writer’s idea and sentiment and belong to science, literature and arts.
