A Comparative Study of “Adapted Comic Arts” as a New Exception to the System of Literary and Artistic Property Rights

Document Type : Original Article

Author
Seyyed Hasan Shobeiri Zanjani
Associate Professor and Faculty Member of Faculty of Law, Qom University
Abstract
 
“Adapted Comic Art” is a kind of artwork which has long enjoyed a special status among different cultures and nations and has had a significant influence on the transmission of social, political, ethical and cultural concepts to its audience, which, in its broader sense, includes caricature, humor and artistic imitation, etc. Since the common aspect of such works is their adaptation from intellectual creation of others, in the copyright system they are known as an adaptive work per se. The main problem originates from the fact that, according to the traditional copyright system, the creator of the secondary work needs to ask for permission from the creator of the original work in order to create an adaptive work; commitment to such act concerning the above-mentioned works, however, can be an important obstacle to creators of these works and have a reverse effect on the process of growth and development of such works in the society which is precisely in the opposite direction of goals and principles of the intellectual property system, that is the foundation for the development of intellectual works. Therefore, lawmakers have passed a new law in the recent decade in the rights of many advanced counties- the exclusion of such works from the need to obtain permission- and have placed these works in the category of educational and research activities as another exception to material rights of the creator in the modern copyright system. Nevertheless, the exception is neglected in the legal system of many countries such as the current law and even in the new Article of the Copyright Law of Iran. The present study attempts to first analyze and describe different aspects of this exception, examine the views of its proponents and opponents, explain the possibility of expanding it to other cases, and then clarify its status in laws of different countries such as Iran and probably International Regulations. Finally, this study seeks to propose corrective measures in this regard to the Iranian lawmakers.
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Keywords

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