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COPYRIGHT REGISTRATION NOT PROOF OF ORIGINALITY
Article 3 Paragraph 1 Item 1 of the Copyright Law defines works protected under the law as creations within a literary, scientific, artistic or other academic domain. Therefore, copyright in a work may only exist and be protected by the law if the work is an original creation of the human intellect, sufficient to express the per-sonality or uniqueness of the author. However, it has been a matter of dispute how the originality of a work may be evidenced, and whether regis-tration of copyright may be relied upon as evi-dence of originality.
In a 2001 criminal appeals judgment, taking into consideration a letter dated 3 June 1996 issued by the Ministry of the Interior (MOI), the Su-preme Court held that since at the time of copy-right registration the MOI makes no substantive examination of a work, in cases of dispute it is the responsibility of parties to produce evidence that may be investigated and evaluated by the court. Therefore, registration of copyright can-not be cited as evidence of the originality of a work.