Klarinet Archive - Posting 000294.txt from 2002/09

From: "Mark Charette" <charette@-----.org>
Subj: RE: [kl] Costs ??
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 22:42:15 -0400

The Russian copyright system is not the same as the US copyright system.

"Under the Berne Convention and Universal Copyright Convention, the issue of
ownership of copyrights in works created by Russian nationals and first
published in Russia would be determined under the law of Russia, which was
the country of origin." - Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier,
Inc., 153 F.3d 82 (2nd Cir., 1998)

Be careful applying US copyright laws to foreign countries. The chances are
very good that the coverage in a foreign country differs from the US. For
example:

My reading of Article 27 of the Russian Copyright law says:

"Article 27. 1. Copyright shall have effect throughout the lifetime of the
author and for 50 years after his death, except as provided in this
Article." (different than the current US period of coverage)

but further down it says:

"If the author has been rehabilitated posthumously after having been the
subject of repressive measures, the period of protection of rights under
this Article shall begin on January 1 of the year following that of the said
rehabilitation."

I don't know if Rimsky-Korsakov was ever "rehabilitated", but it does go to
show that things are sometimes more complicated than they might seem at
first glance.

(See http://www.fips.ru/avpen/docs.htm for what appears to be an official
site for Russian copyright law. I don't know how official it really is,
though ...)

-----Original Message-----
From: William Wright [mailto:w8wright@-----.net]

Korsakov died in 1908, and therefore copyright could affect an
edition's price only if research had revealed a different version that
was published during the last 75 years.

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