The legal implications of generative artificial intelligence—such as ChatGPT, Dall-E, and Midjourney—are countless: From privacy issues relating to the processing of personal data without the permission of users, to civil and criminal liability of the information generated by these tools. However, one of the most interesting legal issues is the extent to which these new technologies conflict with copyright law, especially as AI tools such as ChatGPT have made it extremely easy to create what appear to be new works based on information freely available on the internet. The question here is simple: Do the works produced by ChatGPT violate the copyright protection of the underlying works from which ChatGPT obtained its information? Spoiler alert: Under Omani Copyright Law, the answer is yes.
Author: Riyadh Al-Balushi
Riyadh is the CEO at Decree. Prior to co-founding Decree, Riyadh worked for over 16 years of as a lawyer for the government of Oman. His areas of subject matter expertise include public international law, technology law, and intellectual property. He holds an LLB from the University of Cardiff, an LLM in IT and Commerce from Southampton University, and a PhD from SOAS, University of London. Riyadh is also a co-founder of Open Data Oman.
The Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Investment Promotion has issued this month a new Regulation for Governing Consumer Cooperatives, which allows members of a specific community to establish a cooperative company with the objective of providing and selling goods to that community. Cooperatives that satisfy the requirements of this regulation are entitled to be allocated government land through usufruct.
The new regulation mandates that the cooperative takes the form of a closed joint stock company, requires the approval of the governorate in which it intends to operate, requires that natural persons own at least 75% of the shares of the company, and sets the shareholding of each natural person in the company to a maximum of 5% of its total shares. The regulation permits one strategic partner with expertise in the coop industry to own a maximum of 25%.
The regulation requires cooperatives to obtain a licence from MOCIIP in order for them to operate, and requires MOCIIP to coordinate with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning to allocate government land to such cooperatives through usufurct.
The regulation was published in this week’s issue of the Official Gazette and comes into force after three months.
You can read it in full in English on the link below:
The Authority for Public Services Regulation has issued a new Water and Treated Water Supply and Wastewater Collection and Transport Services Customers Welfare Regulation that sets the obligations of water and wastewater service providers towards their customers. The predecessor of APSR, the Electricity and Related Water Sector Authority, issued a regulation for electricity sector customers in 2020, and this regulation follows an extremely similar approach for water and wastewater sector customers.
This regulation sets the obligations of service providers in the water and wastewater sector such as the obligation to provide a service agreement in the Arabic and English languages, an obligation not to discriminate between customers, and an obligation to maintain the confidentiality of the information they collect.
The regulation also provides a detailed complaint mechanism procedure, outlines the process for service disconnection, determines billing details, and grants APSR the right to impose administrative penalties of up to 20,000 Rial Omani against service providers who violate this regulation.
You can read the regulation in full in English on the link below:
The Authority for Public Services Regulation has issued the Regulation on Accident Notification in the Water and Wastewater Sector that imposes obligations on providers of licensed water and wastewater activities to report certain types of accidents to the Civil Defence and Ambulance Authority, APSR, and the chairman of the board of the service provider.
The regulation classifies accidents into serious accidents (ones that involve death or injury), significant accidents (ones that involve certain types of service interruption), and serious incidents (incidents that are likely to result in a serious or significant accident). It also includes obligations relating to the minimum information to be included in the notification, obligations for producing preliminary and final accident reports, obligations for sharing information with other licensed service providers, obligations relating to the person responsible for the site of the accident, and obligations relating to record-keeping.
APSR has the authority to impose administrative fines against those who violate the regulation amounting up to 20,000 Rial Omani.
You can read the regulation in full in English on the link below:
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Decree Monthly Digest – March 2023
Decree Monthly Digest is a summary of the most significant legislation issued in the previous month.
Royal Decrees
Seven royal decrees were issued during March, with the most significant being Royal Decree 19/2023 promulgating the Maritime Law—the text of which will be published on Sunday in the Official Gazette—followed by Royal Decree 16/2023 Approving the Accession of the Sultanate of Oman to the Arab Charter on Human Rights. Other royal decrees include Royal Decree 15/2023 Establishing the Oman Across Ages Museum and Determining Its Competences, and Royal Decree 13/2023 Ratifying a Maritime Transport Agreement with the Government of the Kingdom of Bahrain.
Ministerial Decisions
11 ministerial decisions were published in the Official Gazette during this month, with the most significant ones being MHUP’s Regulation for Providing Some of its Services through Engineering Offices and Engineering Consultancy Offices and APSR’s Regulation of the Prevention of Risks from Ground Works and Installations Relating to the Water and Wastewater Sector.
Blog Updates
Our blog featured a number of short law updates on MHUP introducing permits for the promotion of international real estate within Oman and the new regulation for providing some of its services through engineering offices.
Decree Monthly Digest is a summary of the most significant legislation issued in the previous month.
Royal Decrees
Five royal decrees were issued during February. Three involved the appointment of an Undersecretary of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Investment Promotion, non-resident ambassadors, and Supreme Court judges. Royal Decree 10/2023 was the most significant and it related to the allocation of land for the purpose of renewable energy and clean hydrogen projects, while Royal Decree 12/2023 ratified a joint-committee agreement with the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Ministerial Decisions
18 ministerial decisions were published in the Official Gazette during this month, with the most significant ones being CAA’s new Civil Aviation Executive Regulation, MOSD’s NGO Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-terrorist Financing Regulation, MOCII’s National Product Brand Regulation, MTCIT’s amendments of the Executive Regulation of the Law of Carriage by Land, and PASMED’s Riyada Card Regulation.
Blog Updates
Our blog featured this month a commentary article by Yousuf Al-Busaidi titled “Oman Doubles Down on Hydrogen” exploring the ramifications of Royal Decree 10/2022, a guest post by Dr Bader Al-Maskari titled “Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Oman: The Significance of the Reciprocity Principle” exploring article 352 of the Civil and Commercial Procedures Law, along with a number of short law updates on MOL’s new job performance measurement system for civil servants, NCSI’s new Statistics and Information Regulation, MOCIIP’s new National Product Brand Regulation, CAA’s new Civil Aviation Executive Regulation, MTCIT’s amendments to the Carriage by Law Regulation, CPA’s amendment to the Executive Regulation of Consumer Protection.
The National Centre for Statistics and Information recently issued a new Executive Regulation of the Statistics and Information Law. The Statistics and Information Law was issued in 2019 replacing the Statistics Law of 2001, and this new regulation replaces the old Statistics Law Regulation of 2004.
Decree Monthly Digest is a summary of the most significant legislation issued in the previous month.
January was a relatively slow month for royal decrees as only seven royal decrees were issued and none of them related to the promulgation or amendment of laws. The first royal decree of the year was the usual royal decree ratifying the General Budget of the State for the year 2023, this was followed by two royal decrees declaring public benefit status to construct dams in Wadi Adnoub and Wadi Annar in Dhofar, and four royal decrees ratifying the following treaties:
The Ministry of Interior published in this week’s issue of the Official Gazette Ministerial Decision 16/2023 Issuing the Financial System for the Expenses, Disbursements, and Tenders of the Elections of the Members of Majlis Al-Shura and the Municipal Councils. This new system provides an alternative procurement process to that stipulated by the Tender Law and gives the Ministry of Interior new powers including the power to directly award contracts relating to works, services, and supplies for the elections up to the value of 245,000 Rial Omani without going through a tender.
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2022: The Year in Review
Instead of doing our usual monthly digest, we are starting the year 2023 with a reflection on the most significant royal decrees that were issued in the year 2022: