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"Property rights of authors and related rightholders are subject to certain restrictions which are either expressly provided by Law 2121/1993 or arise from the broader legal system of our country. These restrictions in the copyright legislation are either in favor of the scientific progress or the information of the community and in a broader aspect in favor of the whole. These are cases where both a license from the author/rightholder and a fee payment are not necessary (except art.18); such cases are expressly defined in law (articles.18-28C) and must be strictly construed.

In particular, it is deemed that a license by the author and the payment of his remuneration for the use of his work are not needed in the following cases:

• Quotation of short extracts of a lawfully published work by an author for the purpose of providing support for a case advanced by the person making the quotation or criticizing the position of another person, provided that the source, the author and the publisher of these extracts will be indicated (art. 19)
• Reproduction of lawfully published literary works of one or more writers in educational textbooks approved for use in primary and secondary education by the Ministry of National Education and Religious Affairs or another competent ministry, according to the official detailed syllabus, that consist only a small part of the total output of each one of the writers. This provision concerns only printed reproduction (art. 20)
• Reproduction of articles lawfully published in a newspaper or magazine, short extracts of a work or parts of a short work or a lawfully published work of visual arts, exclusively for teaching or examination purposes in an educational institution (art. 21)
• Reproduction of one additional copy by non-profit libraries or archives that have a copy of the work already in their permanent collection, for the purpose of retaining this copy or transferring it to another non-profit library or archive. The reproduction is permitted only if an additional copy cannot be obtained from the market in a short period of time and on reasonable terms (art. 22)
• Reproduction of a cinematographic work, for the purpose of preserving it in the National Cinematographic Archive (art. 23)
• Reproduction of a work for use in judicial or administrative procedures (art. 24)
• Reproduction of a work for information purposes (art. 25)
• The use by the mass media of images of architectural works, fine art works, photographs or works of applied art, which are sited permanently in a public place (art. 26)
• The public performance or presentation of a work a) at official ceremonies, to the extent compatible with the nature of the ceremonies b) within the framework of staff and pupil or student activities at an educational establishment, provided that the audience is composed exclusively of the aforementioned persons, the parents of the pupils or students, persons responsible for the care of the pupils or students, or persons directly involved in the activities of the establishment (art. 27).
• Exhibition and reproduction of fine art works in museums which own the physical carriers into which works of fine art have been incorporated shall be entitled, without the consent of the author and without payment, to exhibit those works to the public on the museum premises, or during exhibitions organized in museums (art. 28 p. 1).
• Presentation of a fine art work to the public, and its reproduction in catalogues to the extent necessary to promote its sale, shall be permissible, without the consent of the author and without payment (art. 28 p. 2).
• Reproduction of a work in favor of blind and deaf-mute persons for uses connected directly with the disability and are of a non-commercial nature, in the necessary level due to the disability (art. 28A).

The reproduction for private use (art. 18a) that is permitted without the consent of the author but with a payment of equitable remuneration is a special case of restriction. The reproduction of a lawfully published work for private use of the person performing the reproduction is considered to be free according to the law. The limits of the free reproduction for private use are outlined in paragraph 2 of art. 18, in which are provided the following: “The freedom to make a reproduction for private use shall not apply when the act of reproduction is likely to conflict with normal exploitation of the work or to prejudice the author’ s legitimate interests, and notably:

• When the reproduction is an architectural work in the form of a building or similar construction;
• when technical means are used to reproduce a fine art work which circulates in a restricted number of copies, or when the reproduction is a graphical representation of a musical work".

In the majority of private reproduction cases, technical means shall be used. Regarding the value of these technical means as they are defined in art. 18 para. 3, a percentage fee is collected as equitable remuneration of the authors and certain rightholders of related rights, as a compensation for the free reproduction for private use. The Law defines the percentage fee depending on the reproduction medium, as well as its distribution among the different categories of rightholders. For example, the equitable remuneration owed for photocopy devices is 4% of their value, which is distributed equally among the intellectual authors and the publishers of printed works. The equitable remuneration is paid by the importers or by the producers of these objects and is collected by the Collecting Societies.

The copyright and related rights are subjected in control of any possible abusive exercise (a. 281AK).

Finally their protection has limited duration, which is defined depending on the case applicable by law (art. 29, art. 30, art. 45, art. 51A, art. 52).