Re: Copyright of laws (was: Copyright over the Internet)

From: John Noble <jnoble[_at_]dgs.dgsys.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 07:04:54 -0500

At 9:24 PM 11/17/94 -0500, jamie wodetzki wrote:
>
>I can agree that it's OK for the US Govt to decide that it won't assert
>copyright of its own laws, and I even wish other Govt's would follow their
>lead. However, if what you say is true, then the US Govt is saying to
>other Nations, we'll protect all authors from your country, but we won't
>protect the copyright of the Govt of your country. Where does the
>Whitehouse (or Congress, I should say) get off saying to another Nation,
>"we'll decide which of your copyrights we protect" ? Where is the basis
>in Berne for this?

I'm not an expert on Berne, but my understanding is that its organizing principle is "national treatment." The principle recognizes that the copyright laws of different countries vary, and rather than requiring them all to conform in all respects, the Treaty insures non-discrimination against foreign works. I.e., it requires that each country afford works from foreign countries the same copyright protection that they afford to works from their own country.

I'm not sure though, that this principle means that the U.S. won't recognize copyright protection for foreign statutes where they are copyrightable in the country of origin. The lack of copyright protection for U.S. statutes is codified at s. 105 of the Copyright Act, which says that copyright protection is not available for any work of the _United States_ government. This obviously doesn't say anything about copyright protection for the works of, say, the Australian government. Unless I'm missing something, as long as the Australian statute is otherwise a work of authorship under the Copyright Act, s. 105 and the national treatment principle would not bar U.S. enforcement of the Australian government's copyright. In addition, I read s. 104(b)(1) to acknowledge the enforceability of copyright on works authored by a "sovereign authority of a foreign nation."

Anybody got a different read on this? Maybe something more authoritative than my guesswork?

---

John F. Noble, Editor
Computer Law Reporter
jnoble[_at_]dgs.dgsys.com Received on Fri Nov 18 1994 - 12:05:32 GMT