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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 29 2012 @ 04:01 PM EDT |
The Berne convention isn't too relevant (the US still
refuses to accept parts of it, actually; "moral rights"
being the most obvious example ) since US copyright law is
considerably older than the Berne convention; in the 1780s,
before the US Congress was formed, states were implementing
their own copyright laws. Those were largely (but not
entirely) superseded by the first federal Copyright Act of
1790. The Copyright Act of 1790 is plagiarized from the
UK's Statute of Anne (1710), so you could say that except
for a very short interregnum during the "Revolution" (sorry
guys, it was more of an anticolonial rebellion than a
revolution), copyright law in North America was part of the
UK copyright law, which goes back to the Press Act (1660.)
It's interesting to see the trend in these laws: the Press
Act had a two-year copyright term; the Statute of Anne
prescribed fourteen years (renewable to twenty-eight); and
today we have the Disney Act a.ka. the Sonny Bono Act which
makes it clear to most of us that Congress will keep
extending the term until hell freezes over.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 29 2012 @ 04:02 PM EDT |
>By the way USA didn't recognize the copyright convention (the Bern
convention) before the late 1990:s.
True, and a very good thing for everyone that was. Instead, the U.S. operated
according to a series of bilateral treaties allowing citizens of each nation
access to the other's copyright protection. Most of the world recognized the
U.S. convention at the time.
Unfortunately, it is dead, with all its manifold manifest
advantages--advantages, that is, to everyone, creators, consumers, and
distributors--well, everyone EXCEPT the IP lawyers.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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