Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Certainly. Many countries have bilateral copyright treaties which override the Berne Convention (eg there's one between the US and UK which has been there since the 1840s), but I do still believe that all Berne Signatories are required to have a "Life+50" copyright term as a minimum. I may well be wrong, but that is my belief.
As Wiki says:
ie, they are free to have longer terms (as the EU has "life+70", for example) but not shorter ones.
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International treatsies and conventions are about respecting law and conventions in other countries. So if the UK extends a life +70 for a Graham Greene, John le Carré or Sophie Kinsella, the US will have to accept and respect that copyright for the same time frame, just as the UK would have to respect the copyright granted to Truman Capote, Saul Bellow or Toni Morrison in the US. There is, however, no restrictions on setting lower limits for copyright holders within their own nation.
From a practical viewpoint a shorter copyright term would need to be faced in over time, those holding copyrights now can fairly expect those rights to be upheld for the time limit granted them when they obtained said copyright. They have made financial decisions based on the right being available to them, changeing that
ex post would be viewed as a retroactive measure and could be fought in constitutional courts.