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Re: license for Federal Information Processing Standards

From: "Mahesh T. Pai" <paivakil@vsnl.net>
To: debian-legal@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: license for Federal Information Processing Standards
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 11:33:50 +0530

Arnoud Engelfriet said on Wed, Feb 25, 2004 at 07:59:49PM +0100,:

 > Because the Berne Convention appears to state so.

Thanks.

<sniP

 > Article 5(2) of the Berne Convention specifically states
 > "The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights ...
 > shall be independent of the existence of protection in the
 > country of origin of the work."
 >
 > And under article 5(1) an author, even the US Government,
 > can claim foreign copyrights for works that qualify as
 > "literary or artistic" under the Berne Convention.

Thanks for the info.

But do all countries implement this part of the Berne Convention?
All Berne member countries should implement this unless they have taken a reservation. I am not aware of any Berne country that has taken a reservation on this Article and of course, some countries may not fully implement their Berne obligations 



At  least  in  India,  recognition  to works  copyrighted  in  foreign
countries  is  based  on  executive  order --  not  statute;  and  the
`International Copyright Order' is, at best ambiguous on it.

The relevant provision (closest to what we are discussing) says:-

    `7. The  Term of copyright in  a work shall not  exceed that which
    is enjoyed by it in its country of origin.'

This means, here, that the US Govt cannot claim copyright in its work.
I suppose the Indian government would say that copyright could be claimed by the U.S. Govt except that in this particular circumstance at this time the copyright the U.S. Govt would have has a nil term. 


I believe the  law (or whatever is enforcible in  courts) in most (non
US) countries would be the same.
I don't think that is true. Sure other countries employ the same term limiting provision as India does but I think you would find it to be the minority view. You may want to check out Geller, International Copyright Law and Practice. 

This is not legal advice, etc.

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