🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <946@lysator.liu.se>, aronsson@lysator (Lars Aronsson) writes:
>Swedish copyright laws are such that when an author has been dead for
>50 years, all her works are free for everyone to copy and publish.

The same in Finland, and it's 50 years from publication if the
author's name is not published.  If there are several authors, it's 50
years from the last author's death.

>Is there anything like a United Nations treaty (an international law)
>on copyright?

There is the Berne convention which seems to have a minimum limit of
50 years (deducing from the EC software directive).  In Europe,
there's the EC copyright directive but it is only for computer
software, not books.  I don't know if there is an EC directive for
books.

From the EC computer software directive:

"Whereas, in order to remain in accordance with the provi-
sions of the Berne Convention for the Protection of
Literary and Artistic Works, the term of protection should
be the life of the author and fifty years from the first of
January of the year following the year of his death or, in
the case of an anonymous or pseudonymous work, 50
years from the first of January of the year following the
year in which the work is first published;"

The laws of EC (and EFTA if the EC - EFTA deal succeeds) countries
must comply with the EC directive in the start of 1993.  However, the
EC directive (and the Berne convention) only specify a minimum level
on the copyright and I understand that some countries have extended the
period to be longer (I remember something about Britain and 75 years,
but I'm not sure).

I'm cross-posting this to misc.int-property and misc.legal.computing,
it might be of interest - let's hope it doesn't cause any trouble with
the mailing list gateway.

//Jyrki