ARCHITECTURAL COPYRIGHT POTENTIALITIES AND LIMITATIONS WITH A SPECIAL REFERENCE TO EGYPT

Copyright and related rights refer to a group of economic and moral rights granted to authors in literary and artistic disciplines to protect their original works. Copyright is a subsidiary issue belonging to the intellectual property rights which seeks to protect creativity and motivate creative people. The importance of this paper appears as rchitects should be aware of their rights, and their creative products should be protected. Therefore, the motivation in conducting this research is: to increase the awareness of copyright among Egyptian architects; and to spread the culture of respecting intellectual property. This paper applies an analytical comparative methodology in discussing copyright in architecture, it is structured into three parts: part one is an overview discussing concepts related to copyright in general, and to architecture in particular; part two analyzes and compares the rights granted to architects; while part three discusses the application issues. Finally, some of the most significant conclusions of this paper are; architecture differs from other disciplines with respect to copyright protection; and rights granted to Egyptian architects is almost equivalent to the international level, however, the realm of architectural work in Egypt requires more awareness about copyright.