Copyright Concerns in Publishing
Copyright Internationally
Each country creates its own copyright laws, requirements, and exceptions, which means there is no such thing as international copyright law - one unified copyright law to rule them all. Different countries have different rules for what gets copyright protections, what is required in order to gain protection, and for how long those protections last. It is therefore important to become familiar with the copyright laws of the individual countries in which you live and work in order to understand how to best protect your own work and how to reuse works created by others (third party works).
How copyright is treated between countries can additionally be governed by trade agreements, treaties, or other means, which further complicates the issue (U.S. Copyright Office, 2021). One major treaty in this area is the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, which sets out basic principles for protecting works and author rights. Of particular interest, the Berne Convention states that works from one country should be given the same protections in other countries as those countries give to their own people, protections should be automatic (i.e., no formal requirements in order to gain copyright protections), and that the duration of copyright last at minimum the life of the author plus 50 years (World Intellectual Property Organization, n.d.-a). According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (n.d.-b), to date, 179 countries are contracting parties to the Berne Convention, so many countries have laws that comply with at least the minimum protections set forth in the Berne Convention. The World Intellectual Property Organization also provides a free database, WIPO Lex (https://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/index.html), that you can use to search for copyright laws by country as well as treaties and judgments (n.d.-c).
