Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
Not sure what you mean. The US signed the convention and it went into effect in 1988 with the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988.
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I'll spell it out. . .
The Berne Convention defined certain lengths for copyright. The most commonly known one was Life + 50 for individual authors. (There were separate lengths defined for Posthumous works, Anonymous works, Works for hire, Collaborative works, ect.)
The US has never followed any of them.
It never followed Life + 50.
It never followed the Posthumous lengths.
It never followed the Anonymous lengths.
It never followed the Works for Hire lengths.
It never followed the Collaborative lengths.
It never followed any Berne length.
Not before it signed the Convention, not after it "signed" the Convention. . .
It seems to me that if you are not going to follow the terms of the Convention, having "signed" it is simply an empty bag, a claimant with no reality backing it up.
(As to life + 50. Berne defines copyright as Life + 50. Not Copyright + X years, as the US has done both before and after it "signed" the Berne Convention. (it's currently Copyright + 95 years), Not copyright + 70 years, Berne never specified that length. To have Berne become Life + 70 would require a formal renegotiation among its signees, This has never been done.
Complying with Life + 50, or even Life +70, would require treating all copyright works in the same manner, and scrapping Copyright + x years. Example, the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle should have gone into the Public Domain in the US in 1981, under the terms of the Berne Convention - died in 1930 + 50 years, plus the next Jan 1. His works from 1923 to his death are still under copyright in the US, and will be to a minimum of 2019, which would equate to Life + 89 years. Assuming there is no further Copyright + X years extension. . ..)
Is that clear enough?