GER-VOLGA-L Archives
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From:
Subject: Re: [GV] Copyright permission (Russia) ex public domain
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 05:28:12 -0500
References: <MWS3871a77b2831314f5980e51c406bf33146@mws38>
In-Reply-To: <MWS3871a77b2831314f5980e51c406bf33146@mws38>
Copyright in Russia developed originally along the same lines as in
Western European countries. A first copyright statute dated back to
1828, and in 1857, a general copyright term of fifty years was
instituted. The copyright law of 1911 was inspired by Western laws
of the continental European tradition. One noteworthy exception in
Russian copyright law was the "freedom of translation"-any work
could be freely translated into another language.
On an international level, the Soviets pursued until the late 1960s an
isolationist policy. While the Tsars had concluded several short-lived
bilateral copyright treaties with Western nations, the Soviet Union
had no external copyright relations at all until 1967, when it
concluded a first bilateral treaty with Hungary. A major change
occurred in 1973, when the USSR joined the Universal Copyright
Convention. Subsequently, more bilateral treaties were concluded,
amongst them two with Western countries (Austria and Sweden).
After its foundation as an independent successor state of the USSR,
the Russian Federation joined the Berne Convention in 1995. The
negotiations about the adherence of Russia to the World Trade
Organization (WTO) led to several amendments of the Russian
copyright law in order to meet the adherence requirements.
On August 8, 2004, the copyright law of Russia was amended by
federal law no. 72-FL, by which the general copyright term was
extended from 50 to 70 years. This term extension applied only to
works that were still copyrighted in Russia in 2004. The same law
also modified the provisions on the copyright of foreign works.[75]
(See "Berne Convention" below.) It added an article 5(4) to the law
that defined that a foreign work was eligible to copyright in Russia if
its copyright had not expired in the source country and it had not
fallen into the public domain in Russia through the expiry of its
copyright term.[75] Other provisions of law 72-FL amended the 1993
copyright law of Russia in several areas, especially concerning
neighbouring rights, to make the legislation compliant with the WIPO
Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms
Treaty.[103][104]
The Berne Convention also became effective for Russia on March 13,
1995.[146] Russian or Soviet works that were copyrighted on that
date became copyrighted in all other Berne Countries on that
date.[147]
In its declaration of accession, Russia made a reservation regarding
article 18 of the Berne Convention, stating that the treaty "shall not
extend to the works which, at the date of entry into force of the said
Convention in respect of the Russian Federation, are already in the
public domain in its territory."[148][143] This statement effectively
denied the retroactivity of the Berne Convention for foreign works
within Russia.[149] This was of some importance because of the
issue of foreign works published before May 27, 1973, when the
USSR had joined the UCC. Such works had never been eligible to
copyright in the Soviet Union or in Russia. Under §18(2) of the Berne
Convention, they should have become copyrighted in 1995 because
that article only exempted works that once were copyrighted, but on
which that copyright already had expired, which didn't apply to pre-
1973 foreign works in Russia.[149] The reservation made by Russia
used a slightly different phrasing, just stating that works that were in
the public domain in Russia in 1995 would not be reprotected. As
pre-1973 foreign works were not copyrighted at all and thus in the
public domain in Russia in 1995, such foreign works remained in the
public domain in Russia.[
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_in_Russia
Reading this makes you wonder under what part of Russian copyright law
allows the Russian Archives to claim a copyright on documents that are 150
years old (1857 census), or older.
Gary Martens
On 6 Oct 2008 at 10:34, Vera Beljakova wrote:
> I hope this will come through, and if not, I'll try to resend later.
> Vera
>
>
>
> Subject:Re: Copyright permission (Russia)
>
>
> Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 13:23:58 -0500 (CDT)
> From: Janice Pilch
>
>
>
>
> The issue of pre-1973 Soviet works is not as it used to be, due to international copyright relations that changed in the 1990s. The U.S. was obliged on January 1, 1996 to restore copyright to eligible international works that had previously been in the public domain in the U.S., and this includes a vast number of works created and published in the USSR. There is no longer a dividing line in the U.S. in copyright protection between Soviet works published before and after 1973. Many pre-1973 Soviet works are protected now in the U.S.
>
> The reason for this was U.S. entry into the WTO and signing of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement), which obligated the U.S. to implement the copyright restoration provision of the Berne Convention.
>
> Determining whether a work created and/or published in the USSR is protected in the U.S. today is often a complicated process, it's not just a matter of addition or subtraction. But determining the copyright status of a Soviet work is the first step to determining whether it can be used freely or should involve permission.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Janice T. Pilch
> Head of Slavic and East European Acquisitions
> Associate Professor of Library Administration
> University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
> 1408 W. Gregory Drive, Urbana, IL 61801
> Tel (217) 244-9399
> Fax (217) 333-2214
>
>
>
> -------------------------------
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