The Concept of Originality Under Cyprus Copyright Law

Originality has a twofold requirement in Cyprus: the work needs to be a personal intellectual creation of its author and not a copy of an already existing work or draft or model of a work. Case-law has attempted to provide further interpretation, at least with regard to the more subjective elements of the concept. Originality seems to require an element of skill and labor, a concept *that* has been drawn from English case-law. Early references to the “expression of the thought of the photographer” could be interpreted as being similar to the EU concept of the “author’s own intellectual creation.” This has been reinforced by references in case-law to the “personal artistic expression of the photographer,” and the citing of cases such as Infopaq and Painer. Skill and labor, however, continue to be referenced by the courts and are considered to be important.