Maps

The Berne Convention gives a broad definition of "literary and artistic works", and it includes maps in its examplicative list of what may be considered "literary and artistic work" and thus be given the legal protection of such works:

                              "Article 2 

(1) The expression "literary and artistic works" shall include every production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain, whatever may be the mode or form of its expression, such as books, pamphlets and other writings; lectures, addresses, sermons and other works of the same nature; dramatic or dramatico-musical works; choreographic works and entertainments in dumb show; musical compositions with or without words; cinematographic works to which are assimilated works expressed by a process analogous to cinematography; works of drawing, painting, architecture, sculpture, engraving and lithography; photographic works to which are assimilated works expressed by a process analogous to photography; works of applied art; illustrations, maps, plans, sketches and three-dimensional works relative to geography, topography, architecture or science."

Although the Convention gives enermous discretion to the members of the Union to legislate in matters of copyright protection under the Convention itself, I think that the fact that maps are considered "literary and artistic works" by this multilateral treaty would be very persuasive in initiating legislative action on this field.

Because of the discretion that members of the Berne Union are provided with by the Convention itself, many countries of the Union don't protect maps the same way as they protect other literary and artistic works. Statutory protection, still, is granted. Some of you who are interested in comparative questions may find it interesting, that the Hungarian Act on Authors' Rights (1969.:III.tv.) establishes the category of "rights relative to authors' rights" which is for mapmakers, routine photographers, diagramm and table editors, etc. The authors of these works possess rights in a curtailed version, but similar to those of authors of literary and artistic works (e.g. shorter period for legal protection). The underlying theory of the distinction is, that in these works a creative process exists only in the method how a part of reality is reproduced, but the object that a mapmaker works on is not his own intellectual product, but part of the reality. Moreover, the rules of these professions are strict enough to minimalize the intellectual contribution of the "author" to the extent where what he does is closer to mechanical selection between a given number of choices than actually creating something new. What comes out in the end is, that maps representing a part of the world do not grant all the rights to the authors, only "rights relative to authors' rights" (the world that a map is about was not invented by the map-maker, he only reproduces it in a form that the rules of his profession require him to do), while maps that represent a product of fantasy are protected the same way as any literary and artistic work is (Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings, or A.A. Milne's Winnie, The Pooh are good examples).

Greetings from Budapest, Hungary,

                   Gabor Palasti


                      Gabor Palasti, dr.iuris
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                   Central European University
                      Kozep- Europai Egyetem
                         Budapest, Hungary
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                      l96pal44[_at_]sirius.ceu.hu
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