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Copyright and Related Rights Act (Zakon o autorskom i srodnim pravima) in brief

Serbia's Copyright and Related Rights Act in brief: what a work is, moral and economic rights, duration, copyright contracts, deposit at the IP Office, damages.

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Short answer. The Copyright and Related Rights Act (Zakon o autorskom i srodnim pravima) governs authors' rights in literary, scientific, professional and artistic works, including software and photographs, and the related rights of performers and of producers of phonograms, videograms, broadcasts and databases. Copyright arises by the mere creation of the work, without any filing or registration; deposit at the Intellectual Property Office (Zavod za intelektualnu svojinu) is voluntary and serves only as evidence. Economic rights last for the author's life and 70 years after death. Copyright contracts must be in writing, and whoever uses another's work without permission is liable for damages, alongside misdemeanour and criminal liability. The current text is published in Sl. glasnik RS Nos. 104/2009, 99/2011, 119/2012, 29/2016 (Constitutional Court decision) and 66/2019. This page explains the Act in plain language and does not replace the official text.

Zakon o autorskom i srodnim pravima, the Copyright and Related Rights Act, governs the rights of authors of literary, scientific, professional and artistic works, the rights of performers, the rights of producers of phonograms, videograms, broadcasts and databases, the rights of publishers, and the way all those rights are exercised and protected (Art. 1). A work of authorship is an original intellectual creation of the author expressed in a certain form, regardless of its artistic, scientific or other value, purpose, size or content (Art. 2 para. 1). The Act lists the typical kinds: written works including computer programs with their documentation, spoken works, dramatic, musical and film works, works of fine art and architecture, photographs, cartographic works, plans, sketches and models (Art. 2 para. 2). Also protected are an unfinished work, parts of a work and its title, if original (Art. 3), adaptations (Art. 4) and collections, including databases, whose protection covers the selection and arrangement of the contents and not the contents themselves (Art. 5 and 5a).

The official citation is: Zakon o autorskom i srodnim pravima (Sl. glasnik RS Nos. 104/2009, 99/2011, 119/2012, 29/2016 - Constitutional Court decision, and 66/2019). The Act applies to works of Serbian authors and, under the international treaties Serbia has ratified, the Berne Convention and the WIPO treaties, to works of foreign authors. The competent authority for the register of works, licences for collective management organisations and approval of tariffs is the Intellectual Property Office (Zavod za intelektualnu svojinu).

Readers searching for "copyright Serbia" almost always have three questions: whether anything has to be registered, who owns what an employee or an outside contractor produced, and what can be done when someone takes a text, photograph or piece of software without permission. This page follows that order.

How the Act is structured

The Act can be read in five parts:

  • Copyright (Art. 1 onwards): the work and the author (Art. 2-13), moral and economic rights (Art. 14-31), limitations (Art. 41-54b), assignment of rights and copyright contracts (Art. 61-71), commissioned works and works created in employment (Art. 95-100), duration (Art. 102-106)
  • Related rights: the rights of performers, producers of phonograms and videograms, broadcasters, database producers and the first publisher of a public-domain work, with their duration in Art. 147
  • Exercise of rights (Art. 150 onwards): individual and collective management, the Office's licence, tariffs, users' obligations
  • Register and deposit of works (Art. 202 and 203)
  • Enforcement and penal provisions (Art. 204 onwards): civil action, damages, interim measures, preservation of evidence, economic offences and misdemeanours

What is not protected (Art. 6). Copyright protection does not extend to general ideas, procedures, working methods and mathematical concepts as such, nor to the principles and instructions contained in a work. Also unprotected are statutes and other regulations, official materials of state bodies and bodies performing public functions, official translations of regulations and submissions in administrative or court proceedings. What is protected is the concrete expression, not the concept: a business idea, a recipe or an algorithm as such is not a work, but the text, code or drawing expressing it is.

Author and presumption of authorship (Art. 8-13). The author is the natural person who created the work and enjoys the rights from the moment of its creation (Art. 8 and 9). The person whose name, pseudonym or mark appears on the copies or at publication is presumed to be the author until proven otherwise (Art. 9 para. 2). Co-authors are persons who created the work by joint creative effort; they exercise the rights jointly and all must consent to an assignment (Art. 10). The rights in an anonymous or pseudonymous work are exercised by the publisher until the author is disclosed (Art. 13).

Moral rights (Art. 14-18). The author has the exclusive right to be recognised as author (Art. 14), to have his name, pseudonym or mark shown on the copies and at every communication to the public, except where technically impossible or inexpedient (Art. 15), to publish the work and decide how (Art. 16), to object to unauthorised alterations and to authorise adaptations (Art. 17) and to object to use that threatens his honour or reputation (Art. 18). Moral rights cannot be assigned and outlast the economic rights (Art. 102 para. 2).

Economic rights (Art. 19-31). The author has the right to the economic exploitation of the work and of works derived from it, and is owed remuneration for every exploitation by another person unless the law or a contract provides otherwise (Art. 19). The individual rights are reproduction (Art. 20), distribution of copies (Art. 21), rental (Art. 22), performance (Art. 25), presentation (Art. 26), broadcasting (Art. 28), communication to the public including interactive making available, that is publication online (Art. 30), and adaptation (Art. 31).

Limitations (Art. 41-54b). Without permission and without payment the law allows use in court and administrative proceedings and for public security (Art. 42), in reporting on current events (Art. 43), in non-commercial teaching (Art. 44), reproduction of a published work for personal non-commercial use, which excludes computer programs, databases and most of a book, with authors compensated through a levy on devices and media (Art. 46 and 39), making a backup copy and correcting errors in a lawfully acquired computer program, which a contract cannot prohibit (Art. 47), temporary reproduction as part of a technical process (Art. 48), quotation of a published work in unaltered form with the source credited (Art. 49), and parody and caricature (Art. 54a). In every case the author and the source must be named, and the use must not conflict with the normal exploitation of the work (Art. 41).

Works created in employment and on commission (Art. 95-100). For a commissioned work the commissioner acquires the right to publish it and to distribute the copy delivered, the author keeps the remaining rights, and for a commissioned computer program the commissioner acquires all rights of exploitation unless agreed otherwise (Art. 95). For a work created in employment the employer has the right to publish it and the exclusive economic rights of exploitation within its business for five years from completion, after which they revert to the author, who is owed special remuneration set by a general act or contract; for computer programs and databases the employer is the permanent holder of the economic rights unless the contract provides otherwise (Art. 98 and 99). The author may publish a work created in employment in collected editions before the five years expire (Art. 100).

Duration (Art. 102-106 and 147). The author's economic rights last for the author's life and 70 years after death (Art. 102). For a work of co-authorship the period runs from the death of the last co-author, for an anonymous or pseudonymous work 70 years from publication (Art. 103), for a film from the death of the last of the director, screenwriter, dialogue author and composer of the film music (Art. 104), and for a musical work with lyrics from the death of the last of the composer and lyricist (Art. 102a). All periods run from 1 January of the year following the triggering event (Art. 106). Related rights are shorter: performers 50 years from the performance, or 70 if the performance is fixed on a phonogram released within that period, phonogram producers 50 or 70 years, broadcasters 50 years from the first broadcast, database producers 15 years, the first publisher of a public-domain work 25 years (Art. 147).

Economic rights are assigned or transferred by a copyright contract, which is made in writing unless the Act provides otherwise (Art. 61 and 67). In practice the term licence is also used for an assignment of the right to use a work, particularly for software; the Act uses that word for databases (Art. 140) and otherwise speaks of assignment of economic rights, with the same content. An assignment may be exclusive or non-exclusive, and if the contract is silent it is treated as non-exclusive (Art. 62). It may be limited as to content, territory and time (Art. 63), and the assignee may not assign the rights onward without the author's permission, except where the whole business is transferred (Art. 64). Transfer of ownership of the original copy does not transfer the copyright (Art. 65). Rights in a future work may be assigned if the kind of work and the forms of use are specified, but an assignment of rights in all of the author's future works, or in forms of use unknown when the contract was made, is void (Art. 66).

The contract contains the names of the parties, the title or other identification of the work, the rights assigned, the amount and method of payment of the fee if agreed, and the limits as to content, territory and time (Art. 69). In doubt the narrower assignment is presumed, and permissions to publish, record and broadcast must be expressly agreed (Art. 68). Two protective rules favour the author: if the profit from the use becomes clearly disproportionate to the agreed fee, the author may seek to amend the contract within two years of learning of it and at most six years from the end of the year in which the disproportion arose (Art. 70); if the holder of an exclusive right does not use the work or uses it insufficiently, the author may withdraw the assigned right two years after the contract was made (Art. 71). The publishing contract (Art. 73 onwards) is a special form of copyright contract in which the assignment is exclusive unless agreed otherwise (Art. 75).

When software, a design or a text is commissioned from an outside contractor, the copyright terms belong in the contract itself: a service contract (ugovor o delu) under the Obligations Act does not by itself transfer copyright to the client beyond the scope of Art. 95. What a service contract does and does not cover is described on the page Ugovor o delu, and the protection of business information that is not a work of authorship on the page NDA ugovor.

Deposit of works at the Intellectual Property Office

Copyright arises by the mere creation of the work and does not depend on any filing (Art. 8). The Intellectual Property Office nevertheless keeps a register and accepts deposited copies of works and of subject matter of related rights, solely to secure evidence (Art. 202 para. 1). Register entries are presumed accurate until proven otherwise, and whoever relied on the register in good faith is not liable for damages (Art. 202). Deposit creates no right and does not affect the creation or duration of protection (Art. 202 para. 6), and a prescribed fee is payable for the entry (Art. 203). The Office issues a certificate of deposit, does not examine originality or content, and processes a duly filed application within 30 days at most. The procedure, Forms A-1 and S-1 and the requirements for the copy are described on the Office's page Evidentiranje i deponovanje autorskih dela.

Copyright should be distinguished from a trademark (žig). A trademark protects a sign that serves in trade to distinguish the goods or services of one person from those of others, such as a name or logo; it is acquired by entry in the Register of Trademarks kept by the Intellectual Property Office and lasts ten years from the filing date, renewable without limit (Trademarks Act, Sl. glasnik RS No. 6/2020, Art. 1, 10 and 58). A logo can be both a work of authorship and a trademark, but a company or product name is protected by a trademark, not by copyright. Trademarks are covered in more detail on the page Zakon o žigovima, and the filing procedure on the Office's page Žig.

Infringement is any unauthorised exercise of an act covered by an exclusive right, failure to pay a prescribed fee and failure to meet other statutory obligations towards the rights holder (Art. 204). The rights holder may bring an action seeking a declaration of infringement or of a serious threat of infringement, an injunction backed by a penalty payment for each repetition, compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary harm, withdrawal from the market, seizure and destruction of copies and of the materials used to make them, a ban on disposing of those means, publication of the judgment at the defendant's cost and information about third parties involved in the infringement (Art. 205). An injunction may also be issued against an intermediary whose services are used for the infringement (Art. 205 para. 2).

In assessing damages the court considers the lost profit, the profit made by the infringer and, where justified, non-pecuniary harm; alternatively it may award a lump sum not lower than the usual fee for lawful use of that kind (Art. 206). Whoever is named on the copy as rights holder is presumed to be the holder until proven otherwise, and infringement proceedings are urgent (Art. 207). On the request of a person who shows that infringement of his right is probable, the court may order interim seizure or exclusion from the market of the infringing items, a ban on disposing of the means of infringement and a ban on continuing the infringement; where the measure is ordered before the action, the action must be filed within 30 days (Art. 210 and 210a). The court may also order preservation of evidence and disclosure of information on the origin and distribution channels (Art. 211-213). The limitation period for a damages action is not in this Act but in the general rules on limitation of damages claims in the Obligations Act (Art. 376), described on the page Zakon o obligacionim odnosima.

Alongside civil remedies there are economic offences for legal entities (Art. 215), misdemeanours for entrepreneurs, responsible persons and natural persons (Art. 216 and 217) and criminal offences under the Criminal Code: infringement of the moral rights of authors and performers (Art. 198 of the Code) and unauthorised exploitation of a work or subject matter of related rights (Art. 199 of the Code).

Collective management of rights

A rights holder may exercise his right individually or collectively, except where the Act prescribes compulsory collective management (Art. 150). Collective management runs through an organisation that is not established for profit (Art. 152) and operates under a licence from the Intellectual Property Office, issued for five years and renewable (Art. 157-160). The organisation negotiates its tariff with representative associations of users, and if no agreement is reached the proposed tariff is approved by the Office (Art. 170-176); fees for uses that are necessary to the user's business are as a rule set as a percentage of revenue (Art. 170). Users must obtain the rights before use begins, report the details of use within 15 days and allow inspection of their records; the owner of the premises, the lessor and the event organiser are jointly and severally liable for payment (Art. 187). According to the Office's records, licences are held among others by Sokoj for musical works, OFPS for phonogram producers, PI for performers, OFA for photographers, OORP for reprographic rights and UFUS AFA Zaštita for film authors. For the owner of a cafe, shop or salon this means the fee for music played on the premises is paid to the organisation, not to each author individually.

No. The 2009 Act applies with four changes. The 2011 and 2012 amendments (Nos. 99/2011 and 119/2012) moved the work of the former Copyright Commission to the Intellectual Property Office and introduced a single fee for the communication to the public of music, performances and phonograms. The Constitutional Court decision published in No. 29/2016 struck one provision of the Act. The 2019 amendments (No. 66/2019) extended the terms of protection for musical works with lyrics and for recorded performances and phonograms to 70 years and regulated the exhaustion of rights for copies lawfully put on the market in the European Union. A draft new act aligning Serbian law with the EU directives was put to public consultation, but no new act had been adopted by October 2026.

Where to read the official text

The official consolidated text is available in the Legal Information System of the Republic of Serbia (pravno-informacioni-sistem.rs), and the Intellectual Property Office publishes an overview of the regulations in force on copyright and related rights: Zakoni i propisi, autorsko i srodna prava. Unofficial consolidated texts are also available in commercial legal databases such as paragraf.rs.

Sources

What to do

  • A work of authorship is an original intellectual creation of the author expressed in a certain form, regardless of artistic value, purpose or size; it includes written works and computer programs, spoken, dramatic and musical works, films, works of fine art and architecture, photographs, maps, plans and sketches (Art. 2).
  • Not protected are ideas, procedures, working methods and mathematical concepts as such, statutes and other regulations, official materials and submissions in court and administrative proceedings (Art. 6).
  • The author is the natural person who created the work; whoever is named as author on the copies is presumed to be the author until proven otherwise, and the rights arise at the moment the work is created (Art. 8 and 9).
  • Moral rights are the right to be recognised as author, to be named, to publish the work, to protect its integrity and to object to degrading use; they cannot be transferred and outlast the economic rights (Art. 14-18 and 102).
  • Economic rights cover reproduction, distribution, rental, performance, presentation, broadcasting, communication to the public including online, and adaptation; the author is owed remuneration for every use unless agreed otherwise (Art. 19-31).
  • Economic rights last for the author's life and 70 years after death, for co-authors from the death of the last co-author; periods run from 1 January of the following year (Art. 102, 103 and 106).
  • A copyright contract assigning or transferring rights must be in writing; an assignment is non-exclusive unless expressly agreed as exclusive, and in doubt the narrower assignment is presumed (Art. 62, 67 and 68).
  • For a work created in employment the employer holds the exclusive economic rights within its business for five years from completion unless agreed otherwise; for computer programs and databases the employer is the permanent holder of the economic rights (Art. 98).
  • Deposit of a work at the Intellectual Property Office is voluntary, serves to secure evidence and does not affect the creation or duration of the rights; register entries are presumed accurate until proven otherwise (Art. 202).
  • For an infringement the author may sue for a declaration, an injunction, damages, seizure and destruction of copies and publication of the judgment; instead of proven damages the court may award a lump sum not lower than the usual fee for that kind of use, and the proceedings are urgent (Art. 205-207).
  • Collective management organisations (Sokoj, OFPS, PI and others) exercise rights for an entire repertoire under a five-year licence from the Office; users obtain rights before use and pay fees under a tariff (Art. 152, 160 and 187).

FAQ

Which Copyright and Related Rights Act is in force in 2025 and 2026?

The Copyright and Related Rights Act of 2009 (Sl. glasnik RS No. 104/2009) applies, with the 2011 and 2012 amendments (Nos. 99/2011 and 119/2012), which moved the work on collective management tariffs to the Intellectual Property Office, a 2016 Constitutional Court decision (No. 29/2016) and the 2019 amendments (No. 66/2019), which among other things extended the terms of protection for musical works with lyrics and for recorded performances. A draft new act transposing the EU directives on orphan works and on collective management was put to public consultation, but no new act had been adopted by October 2026.

Do I have to register a work for it to be protected?

No. The author enjoys moral and economic rights from the moment the work is created (Art. 8), and no filing, stamp or publication is needed. The Intellectual Property Office keeps a register and accepts deposited copies of works, but solely to secure evidence: deposit is not compulsory, creates no right and does not affect the start or duration of protection, and register entries are presumed accurate until proven otherwise (Art. 202). The Office does not examine originality or content. Deposit makes sense for software, designs, scripts and other works where it is later hard to prove who created them first and when; the Office's certificate has the force of a public document but can be contested in court.

How is a work deposited at the Intellectual Property Office and how long does it take?

The application is filed by the author or rights holder, by post or in person at the Office's registry in Belgrade (Kneginje Ljubice 5). It comprises two identical copies of Form A-1 for a work of authorship or Form S-1 for subject matter of related rights, one copy of the work signed by the author or rights holder, proof of payment of the republic administrative fee (Art. 203) and, where needed, a statement of legal basis if the applicant is not the author, a statement naming a joint representative where there are several applicants, and a short description of the work when it is delivered on a disc or USB drive. A duly filed application is processed within 30 days at most and ends with a certificate of deposit. Changing a deposited work requires a new application. Only the applicant, the courts and other state bodies may inspect the deposited copy. The conditions are set by the Decree on the conditions to be met by deposited copies of works.

Who owns the copyright in software or a design made by an employee or an outside contractor?

It depends on the basis. For a work created in employment, the employer may publish it and holds the exclusive economic rights of exploitation within its business for five years from completion, unless a general act or the employment contract provides otherwise, while the author keeps the remaining rights and is owed special remuneration; for computer programs and databases the employer is the permanent holder of the economic rights unless the contract provides otherwise (Art. 98 and 99). For a commissioned work the commissioner acquires the right to publish it and to distribute the copy delivered, and the author keeps the remaining rights, except for a commissioned computer program, where the commissioner acquires all rights of exploitation unless agreed otherwise (Art. 95). Under a service contract with an outside contractor the rights stay with the author until assigned or transferred by a written copyright contract (Art. 61 and 67); paying for the job does not transfer copyright, just as buying the original copy does not transfer the copyright in it (Art. 65). The service contract itself is covered on the page Ugovor o delu.

What must a copyright contract contain, and what is the difference between an exclusive and a non-exclusive licence?

A copyright contract is made in writing (Art. 67) and contains the names of the parties, the title or other identification of the work, the rights assigned, the amount and method of payment of the fee if one is agreed, and the limits of the assignment as to content, territory and time (Art. 69). An assignment may be exclusive, where only the assignee may use the work and assign it onward, or non-exclusive, where the author may grant the same right to others; if the contract is silent, the assignment is non-exclusive (Art. 62). In doubt the narrower assignment is presumed, and permissions to publish, record and broadcast must be express (Art. 68). The assignee may not assign the rights onward without the author's permission, except where the whole business is transferred (Art. 64). An assignment of rights in all of the author's future works, or in forms of use unknown when the contract was made, is void (Art. 66). If the income from the work becomes clearly disproportionate to the fee, the author may seek to amend the contract within two years of learning of it and at most six years (Art. 70), and if the assignee does not use the work, the author may withdraw the assigned right after two years (Art. 71).

What can I do if someone uses my text, photograph or software without permission?

Infringement is any unauthorised exercise of an exclusive right and any failure to pay a prescribed fee (Art. 204). By an action before the competent court the rights holder may seek a declaration of infringement, an injunction backed by a penalty payment, compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary harm, withdrawal from the market, seizure and destruction of copies and of the means used to make them, publication of the judgment at the defendant's cost and information about third parties involved (Art. 205). The court assesses damages by reference to lost profit and the infringer's gain, and may instead award a lump sum not lower than the usual fee for that kind of use (Art. 206). The proceedings are urgent, and whoever is named as author on the copy is presumed to be the rights holder (Art. 207). Before the action, an interim measure of seizure or injunction may be sought on showing that the infringement is probable, with the action to follow within 30 days (Art. 210 and 210a). A damages claim is time-barred under the general rules of the Obligations Act, three years from learning of the harm and the wrongdoer and in any case five years from the harm (Art. 376 of that Act).

What are the penalties for copyright infringement, and is it a criminal offence?

The Act provides for economic offences and misdemeanours. A legal entity that uses a work without authorisation is liable for an economic offence with a fine of RSD 100,000 to 3,000,000, and its responsible person RSD 50,000 to 200,000, with confiscation and publication of the judgment (Art. 215). An entrepreneur is liable for the same acts as a misdemeanour with a fine of RSD 50,000 to 500,000 (Art. 216), and for lesser misdemeanours, such as failing to name the author or altering a work without authorisation, a legal entity faces RSD 100,000 to 1,000,000, a responsible person or natural person RSD 10,000 to 50,000 and an entrepreneur RSD 10,000 to 200,000 (Art. 217). The Criminal Code separately punishes infringement of the moral rights of authors and performers, with a fine or imprisonment of up to three years for the basic form (Art. 198 of the Code), and unauthorised exploitation of a work or subject matter of related rights, with imprisonment of up to three years for the basic form (Art. 199 of the Code). A civil damages action and misdemeanour or criminal liability do not exclude one another.