Is it allowed to use published works within a reasonable scope for the purpose of performing official duties?
is OK. However, the author's copyright must be respected and infringements such as changing the scope of the work must not be carried out.
State organs include legislative bodies, administrative agencies, judicial agencies, legal supervision agencies and military agencies. There are many situations where State agencies use other people's works. For example, the legislative body copies or excerpts certain legal papers in order to formulate laws. Judgment agencies and legal supervision agencies need to copy written works, photographs, etc. related to the case in order to handle the case. Administrative agencies copy political, economic, cultural, educational, scientific and technological data for administrative needs. Military agencies prepare for exercises and operationsCopy maps and more. State agencies use other people's published works for the purpose of researching issues, formulating policies, and implementing management, that is, for the purpose of performing official duties, and may do so without the copyright owner's permission or payment of remuneration.
However, if the use of other people’s works by state agencies is not required for official activities , for example, if you want to publish a book "Selected Papers on Family Planning", you must obtain the consent of the copyright owner and pay him remuneration. In addition, state agencies may not arbitrarily expand the scope of use when using other people's published works for the purpose of performing official duties. For example, for the purpose of trial, a people's court only needs to copy one article from the copyright owner's compiled work to find out the facts, but it cannot copy several articles, otherwise it is not fair use.
In order to prevent the abuse of this provision, not only protect the rights and interests of copyright owners, but also ensure the needs of state agencies to perform official duties, the revised Copyright Law stipulates that "state agencies use published works for the purpose of performing official duties" is changed to " "State agencies shall use published works within a reasonable scope for the purpose of performing official duties", which further clarifies the scope of state agencies' use of others' published works. If you have any other questions, please feel free to consult the Legal Savior Network.
