On Wed, 1 May 1996, ODI LIBRARY wrote:
>
> On Tue, 30 Apr 1996, Alexander Klett wrote
> >
> > Now, even despite this directive works by English authors would
> > generally have been protected only for life +50 in Germany because of the
> > German Copyright Act and the Berne Convention which says that an author's
> > works will be protected abroad for the same term of protection granted in
> > his home country.
>
> My understanding was the reverse - an author's works are protected
> abroad for the same term as native author's works, ie. under Berne UK
> authors works in Germany should be protected for the same duration as
> anyone elses works in Germany. Thus the issue is the German Copyright
> Act conflicting with Berne - not Berne itself.
>
> Please correct me if I have misunderstood.
According to Berne the minimum protection is life +50 years (cf. art.7 s.1 RBC). The protection may be longer than that according to art.7 s.8 RBC which says (excuse my bad translation - I have a German version in front of me): In all cases the term of protection depends on the copyright law of the country in which proetction is sought (that would seem to mean life +70 for everybody - including foreigners - in Germany; but:); however, the term of protection granted doesn't exceed the term granted in the country of origin of the work, unless the national copyright law expressly says so.
This is Berne's country of origin approach. Result: A work by a Brit used to be protected for life +50 in the UK and also in Germany (art.7 s.8 RBC). This was the situation until October 19, 1993.
On October 20, 1993 this whole thing changed with the "Phil Collins"-case and the RBC suddenly became irrelevant in the EU thanks to the European Court of Justice ( :-( ) - at least as far as art. 5 and 7 RBC are concerned. So since that day every work by an author from any EU/EEA member state is protected for life + 70 in Germany THROUGH German copyright law and the EC/EEA as interpreted by the judges in Luxemburg (cf. art 6 EC - non-discrimination !) - NOT THROUGH BERNE (which was completely ignored by the judges in Luxemburg anyway).
In the meantime the German act has been changed accordingly (cf. par. 120/125 German Copyright Act, new version).
Alex
"Attempto !"
alexander.klett[_at_]student.uni-tuebingen.de
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