US protection of French publication

A US or dual US-French citizen creates, and presumably publishes, an artwork in France in the mid-1960s. The artwork contains no copyright notice, either as contemplated by the UCC or as would generally be required under the US' 1909 copyright act.

Public domain? Did the 1891 treaty between the US and France require, still, that a French publication carry a US copyright notice in order for the work to be protected in the US upon its subsequent publication here? If not, was that treaty abrogated by the US accession to the UCC in 1955 such that the work had to carry, at minimum, the UCC notice in order to be entitled to protection in the US?

Seems to me that notice would have been required in either case in order to acquire US protection - excusing notice, it seems, would result in other than national treatment by allowing foreign citizens/domicillaries (or US citizens who happened to publish their works first overseas) greater protection in the US than they'd get if they published it first here.

If, notwithstanding the above, US protection was acquired, sans notice, would not the term of such protection be limited to 28 years plus the automatic renewal term?

Note that if published first in France, it seems clear that the work would, regardless, be protected in France, even if public domain in the United States. The question here relates solely to copyright status in the US.

David W. Quist
<dquist[_at_]worldnet.att.net> Received on Mon Apr 05 1999 - 02:44:46 GMT